The Karen Carpenter Story

The Karen Carpenter Story
Cynthia Gibb and Mitchell Anderson as Karen and Richard Carpenter
Written by	Barry Morrow
Directed by	Joseph Sargent
Starring	Cynthia Gibb Mitchell Anderson Peter Michael Goetz Louise Fletcher Michael McGuire Lise Hilboldt Kip Gilman Scott Burkholder
Theme music composer	Richard Carpenter
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
Production
Producer(s)	Robert A. Papazian Hal Galli
Cinematography	Kees vanOostrum
Editor(s)	George Jay Nicholson
Running time	92 minutes
Release
Original network	CBS
Original release	January 1, 1989

The Karen Carpenter Story is an American television film about singer Karen Carpenter and the brother-and-sister pop music duo of which she was a part, The Carpenters. The film aired on CBS on January 1, 1989. Directed by Joseph Sargent, it starred Cynthia Gibb as Karen Carpenter, and Mitchell Anderson as her brother, Richard Carpenter.

The real Richard Carpenter served as a producer for the film as well as of the musical score.

The movie begins with the collapse of Karen Carpenter in the closet of her parents' home in Downey, California, on February 4, 1983. She is rushed to the hospital by paramedics, and as the EMT is placing an oxygen mask over her face, "Rainy Days and Mondays", recorded by the Carpenters on their self-titled album, is playing. The scene shifts to teenage Karen Carpenter singing "The End of the World" as she roller skates on the day the family moved into their home in Downey (they had previously resided in New Haven, Connecticut). The film then shows the highs and lows of Karen's life from the 1960s to 1983. One of the scenes, which showed Karen fainting onstage while she was singing the song "Top of the World", was fictionalized. Also fictionalized is when Richard falls down a flight of stairs, due to his abuse of Quaaludes. The film improbably attempts to end on a happy note, with Karen smiling after her mother says "I love you." The details about her subsequent death are superimposed on the screen before the closing credits.

The idea for a movie based on Karen's life had been floating around after her sudden death in 1983. However, it was impossible to find someone to write the script for it. Once it had been approved by the studio and Richard Carpenter, there were daily script "rewrites or entire scenes were removed" according to co-stars Cynthia Gibb and Mitchell Anderson, in an attempt to soften the image of Agnes Carpenter by her son in real life. The final movie, in Gibb's opinion, gives a "white-washed" account of Karen's life. Gibb also said that a lot of the information in it was "watered down or removed altogether" at the request of Richard.