Little Girl Blue (17 page)

Between the years 1970 and 1975, Sherwin Bash witnessed a gradual transformation in Karen from an immature tomboy to an attractive young woman. He felt it was indeed an effort on her part to break free from the only way of life she had known in hopes of exchanging it for a life she very much desired. In his words, there was “
a very strong attempt
on Karen's part, whether she was consciously aware of it or not, to find a place for herself in the social strata of young womanhood.” This transformation had little to do with her status as an entertainer or celebrity. She was more intent on becoming someone who “had friends, could go out on dates, and have a social life,” said Bash. “And I don't believe she ever totally achieved it.”

What Bash had sensed was in actuality a concentrated effort on Karen's part to shed her tomboy qualities for a more feminine persona. “She wanted to be a woman,” says Frenda, who at Karen's urging assisted in a slow but steady makeover. “She so wanted to be refined. She wanted to be what she called ‘uptown.' It sounds so peculiar, but she wanted what she knew she could earn and wanted all the finery that went along with her career. She looked to me for that.”

The transformation would not be easy, as Karen had exhibited this tough exterior and guise for most of her life. Having grown up playing baseball with the neighborhood boys, then becoming a drummer and going on tour with an all male band, she walked and talked like one of the guys. “She used to walk across the stage like a Mack truck,” Frenda exclaims. “Feminine she wasn't. We had to work on her posture a lot and her walking. . . . I worried about it because I didn't want people to take her the wrong way. That wasn't who she was. That was Karen not wanting to get hurt. I think a lot of it was a cover-up. I really do. If you put up a big, thick wall, and you're kind of a tough guy, you're not going to expose your gentleness.”

Karen's makeover from Downey to “uptown” took years. In fact, it was more of a work in progress. “We went from A to Z, as you would with a baby,” Frenda explains. “She was such a fast study. It was amazing. I wanted her to put her best foot forward, especially if it was on camera or in an interview. I didn't want her to be afraid and let that ‘best offense is a good defense' come right out.” Karen respected Frenda and took her directives very seriously. “Sit up straight,” she would instruct Karen. “Talk like a lady and act like a lady. Oh, and don't come off like a truck driver!” The two would laugh. Just when Karen seemed to have reached her goal of walking and talking like a lady, according to Frenda, “There were still times the ‘Downey' would come back out!”

Karen often borrowed accessories from Frenda's extensive wardrobe to complement her own. Lending her a handbag for an award show appearance, Frenda scrawled with a marker on a small index card and dropped it in the purse. Later that evening, Karen opened the bag and discovered the drawing of two huge eyes and was reminded that her friend was watching her every move and hoping for the best. Also on the card were three letters—G.U.S.—an inside joke between trainer and trainee instructing Karen to “grow up, schmuck!”

“
B
EING THE
only girl
makes you the center of attention,” Karen explained in a 1971 interview for
Teen
magazine. “Let's face it, any girl likes to get attention, and the guys are all very protective toward me. It's wild, I tell you. I can't make a move. They're always watching out for
me.” Even so, Karen longed for the companionship of another female while on the road. “Sometimes I feel as if I've got to have another girl to talk to, but that's only natural.”

Agnes and friend Beverly Nogawski kept weekly hair appointments every Friday morning at the Magic Mirror, a local beauty shop near the intersection of Firestone and Lakewood boulevards in Downey. “Did you know Karen is looking for somebody to do her hair?” Nogawski asked salon manager Maria Luisa Galeazzi.

“The idea of traveling and going places attracted the wild card in me,” says Galeazzi, who accepted an offer from Karen after a brief interview at Newville. “But I didn't know what I was going to get myself into! Karen and I became friends—sort of—but I never really took the initiative to become very personal with her. . . . I didn't stick my nose in anything. If I saw things I just kept quiet. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil!”

Richard was immediately attracted to the feisty blond Italian. “He had fallen for Maria before they even left on the tour,” recalls Evelyn Wallace. “When she would come to do Karen's hair at the house, the doorbell would ring, and before I had a chance to get up from my desk Richard was down those stairs and at the door.”

Galeazzi's first gig was July 7, 1972, at University of Houston, where she went straight to work caring for the group's personal property, from travel clothes to stage outfits and jewelry. “Nothing was out of place, and everything was put away and locked up and ready to go for the next gig,” she explains. “I remember the first night. My God, I was scared to death. We were a couple of stories down, way underneath the stadium, and I could barely hear the announcement to get Karen up there.” Prior to the concert, an intoxicated fan jumped to the stage and sat down at Karen's drums during the performance by opening act Skiles and Henderson. “Karen, I want to marry you!” he yelled as he pounded on the instruments. The man was apprehended after assaulting a police officer. “Don't touch me!” he shouted as he continued to kick and scream his way off stage. “I'm engaged to Karen Carpenter!” Authorities found wedding rings and airline tickets for the supposed honeymoon once they booked him into the local jail.

Leaving the stadium, Galeazzi was unprepared for the farewell rituals of Carpenters fans, something Karen and Richard were accustomed to by this juncture. “I was not ready for all the fans pulling hair and clothes and trying to get into the car. They were just crazy and making the car jump up and down and everything.” Neighbors Tex and Charlene McAlister witnessed the pandemonium as well when they would attend concerts with the Carpenter parents. “It was almost impossible to get out of there after a concert because the kids would go so crazy,” Charlene recalls. “We were in a limo with their parents, and the fans all thought that we were Richard and Karen. ‘Just raise your hand and wave,' Harold told us. The fans were all over the hood of the car. We ended up being the decoy car, and Richard and Karen were behind. It was just a regular car that nobody even looked at.”

One of the more serious scares occurred as the Carpenters prepared for a concert at Oregon State University in Corvallis. As Karen and Maria left their hotel rooms they were attacked by several men and tackled to the ground. “We were walking down the hallway to go to the gig and some gypsies jumped us,” Galeazzi recalls. “They came out of another room and jumped us! We were down on the ground. It's a good thing the guys from the band were not far behind us. It was really, really scary.”

At times, Frank Bonito and other friends were concerned for Karen's safety and did all they could to preserve her privacy. “We wouldn't let her go to the bathroom alone,” he says. “We were always very protective of her. This was around the time Patty Hearst was kidnapped and all that. Richard wasn't noticed as much as Karen was since he wasn't in the forefront.” He recalls accompanying Karen to a department store once. “When she had her sunglasses on people would walk on by. Everything was fine until she used her credit card. Then we had to leave the store!”

Most Carpenters fans were kind and respected the duo's space. Others could be almost abusive. Dinner interruptions were frequent, so they would often ask for a private room or at the very least position Karen with her back to the main dining room. “
They are quite gracious
when asked for autographs,” wrote Tom Nolan in
Rolling Stone
,
“considering how often they are approached in restaurants, after concerts, while riding in limousines. . . . Approached during breakfast in Richmond, Virginia, by a rotund and particularly nervy fellow bearing five napkins to be individually inscribed, Karen blurted out in disbelief, ‘Oh, fuck!'”

Despite the fame and recognition, Karen seemed to remain the simple, unpretentious girl Frank Bonito had walked to and from school with years before. Her trust of such friends seemed to grow with every mounting success. “Karen felt comfortable with us,” Bonito says. “She was very down-to-earth and never played the prima donna. She was always interested in what we were doing in our lives. We represented history and security. We also represented how her life would be if she weren't a singer.”

Nathan Hale eighth grade class of 1963: Karen is in row 3, fifth from right.
Frank Bonito

Karen with classmates. From left: Frank Bonito, Anthony Viollano, Debra Cusack, and Karen.
Frank Bonito

Eighth grade graduation day, June 1963: Mitchell Porylo, Karen, Carol DeFilippo, Frank Bonito, and Sophie DeFilippo.
Frank Bonito