Burt Bacharach’s ex-wife wore lifts in her shoes, had a boob job and changed her style in order to please the singer.
Carole Bayer Sager admitted she felt insecure about her 5ft 1in height, weight and appearance and offhand remarks from the singer didn’t help her feelings.
In her new book, ‘They’re Playing Our Song’, the 69-year-old singer recalled how she and Burt were heading out for dinner one night when he remarked on how her skirt made her legs look short.
She said: "I stood there semi-stunned, my fragile-at-best self-image melting as he went on. That was it. It only took one remark, from someone I wanted to love me, for me to cover a body part for the rest of my life."
After they had been together for four months, Burt gave Carole her first gift – a pair of framed photographs, one of a racehorse and another of a woman with her legs crossed provocatively.
She recounted: "All I saw was his worship for beauties that, at five foot one, I could never be. He didn’t mean to be hurtful. He was just oblivious to the effect of his actions."
On Dolly Parton’s recommendation, Carole – who wrote a number of songs with 88-year-old Burt – contacted shoemaker Pasquale Di Fabrizio, who gave her spouse two extra inches and a third secretly-built into his shoes, while his footwear elevated Carole by a further 41/2 inches.
After Burt moved in with Carole, he insisted on keeping his own one-bedroom apartment, and when she visited that property one day, she found a number of slides of a "naked, full-breasted woman" with her phone number written on them, but her spouse dismissed the pictures as being from a "crazy fan" and insisted he had never called her.
Carole then asked if he had a thing for big breasts, prompting him to say: "What guy wouldn’t?"
According to the book, he then told her he’d had a conversation with second wife Angie Dickinson about her, in which he said: "I must really be in love with her because she doesn’t even have big breasts."
After the conversation, she then sought the services of Dr. Harry Glassman for "perky and alluring" new breasts, before getting the bags under her eyes removed.
In an extract from the book obtained by DailyMail.com, she noted: "It was always only a little ‘fix’, but that’s what I was discovering it was all about. Little fixes – maybe a shot of collagen here, a bit of Botox there.
"I was just trying to look like I belonged with Burt’.
Carole and Burt – who have adopted son Christopher together – divorced in 1991 after nine years of marriage.
Carole has been married to American Film Institute chairman Robert Daly since 1996, while Burt wed fourth wife Jane Hansen – the mother of his kids Oliver and Raleigh – in 1993.
Burt Bacharach’s ex-wife changed for him
