Karen's Passing and the Trials of Fame

[Someday]

With the 30th Anniversary of KC's death, I have been thinking a lot lately about something that may not have been mentioned often: did being famous contribute to her passing?

The age-old tale of child stars and older adults not being able to handle fame has been told time and time again. Tom Chaplin (of KEANE) being one of the most recent in the music business ... the pressure of being in the public eye turned him to pretty serious drug abuse. One of the lucky ones, he has come through, but the list is endless. Ok, Karen was not a child star, but overwhelming fame came when she was barely out of her teens - and at an age when most of us have no real idea who we are or what we want from life. These stars lose their identity to being in the public eye.

I've heard Richard say Karen loved being famous and she apparently had a reputation for being 'grounded', but, who knows. So much emphasis has been put upon her illness being due to family issues, perhaps we have all been overlooking something that's not uncommon at all ...

 

[byline]

I remember people talking about Michael J. Fox being described as "grounded" and "a nice guy" ... but then you read his autobiography, and you see how consumed he was by the trappings of showbiz. It takes a lot for a person to acknowledge that a seriously debilitating illness like Parkinson's makes them a better person (and I think that few would really go that far), but Fox has said it time and again. It forced him to slow down, take stock of his life and make healthful changes. Unfortunately, anorexia nervosa (or any of the obsessive-compulsive/addictive mental illnesses) serves the exact opposite function. It's a way for the individual to retreat into obsessive behaviors and not have to deal directly with the issues in their lives. Going by Randy's book, it sounds like, toward the end of her life, Karen was taking baby steps in that direction (which, given the many control issues in her life, would have been quite momentous), but sadly it was too little too late.

 

[Dave]

Shocking to really want to gear our thinking to something of this nature (and it's recently learning Joseph Kearnes who played Mr. Wilson of DENNIS THE MENACE (before the role was taken over by Gale Gordon) had dieted to death & a proficient organist, had hidden behind his keyboard, which had me bravely revisiting this topic...

Not wanting to dwell too much on this subject, just that fame gets handled w/ varying degrees of tolerance & dealing w/ the public in the sense that the end will always be a "survival of the fittest" thing...




-- Dave