Lynda Carter was born in Phoenix in 1951. She performed on a Talent Show at the age of five and was a singer in a band at high school and later in a group with her cousins. She was voted ‘Most Talented’ at Arizona State University but dropped out to pursue a career in music. She performed on tour with a band called The Garfin Gathering and won Miss World USA 1972.
She took acting classes in New York at this time and appeared in a number of B movies before getting her big break playing DC comic book heroine, Wonder Woman. The series lasted from 1975 to 1979.
Growing up, Lynda was a memorable and positive role model for me. I thought the costume was awesome. Now, I have mixed feelings about the way she was dressed. She is hardly wearing anything really, it’s a glorified bikini, she’s all boobs and legs. It’s a male fantasy, but it has to be said, it’s also a female fantasy, for women scrabbling for a postive role model. This was really all we had in the seventies. It was a very mysogynstic time. (Who am I kidding? It still is). We can see a woman’s beauty and power and sensuality on one hand, but on the other, these days, we can see that Wonder Woman was obviously objectified (but glad it was shorts rather than a skirt, a tad better) but all I saw as an eight year old girl, was a very positive, intelligent, beautiful, strong and kind character which maybe helped me get through some of my childhood angst, and the whole thing stays true to the DC comic books. And if it did feel very positive, maybe it was.
She wanted to play the part so that other women would relate to her. She said, ‘I want women to want to be me, or be my best friend!” That’s exactly how I felt. I wanted to be her, or be her best friend. So I think she nailed it!
She married her agent, Ron Samuels in 1977 and during the late seventies, she went back to her first love, which was music, and recorded an album called Portrait.
Unhappy in her marriage, Lynda began drinking heavily. In 1982, she left her home, leaving her husband a note. She sought a divorce, but she says she has no animosity towards him and wishes him well.
A few years later she met and married Washington, D.C. Attorney Robert A. Altman and had two children, Jessica and Jamie. She also sought help with her drinking and has been sober now for around 22 years. In 2016, she said, ‘After 18 years of recovery, I live every day with immense gratitude. I am forever thankful for my family and friends who stood by me and encouraged me… and for those who helped me heal.’ She emphasizes the importance of family support in addiction issues.
In 1993, just when Lynda thought she had it all, a perfect husband and two wonderful children, her husband was accused of bank fraud and their world imploded. A huge court case ensued. Lynda implies that those two and a half years, when they were clearing his name, were the worst of her life. Eventually, his name was cleared and they could finally get on with their lives.
After Wonder Woman, Lynda appeared in several musical T.V specials and a crime drama series called Partners In Crime in 1984. Then in the 1990’s, she appeared in several television movies and in the comedy/horror film, The Creature in The Sunny Side Up Trailer Park 2004, playing a has-been beauty queen. In 2005, she appeared in the remake of The Dukes Of Hazard and Disney movie ‘Sky High’ and guested in the vampire film ‘Slayer’ and the T.V series ‘Smallville.’
She has also done many voice overs, mostly for the video game, The Elder Scrolls.
She played ‘Mama Morton’ in the West End production of Chicago.
In 2007, she toured America with a one woman cabaret show, ‘An Evening with Lynda Carter.‘
In June 2009 and 2011, respectively, she released her second and third albums, a mix of jazz, country and pop. In 2015, she wrote and recorded five songs for the video game Fallout 4. In 2018, she released her fourth album, a bluesy record, where she duets two songs with her daughter Jessica.
Lynda was inadvertently, part of the Me too movement. In 2018, she spoke about being violated by a famous person, back in the day, but wouldn’t name names or describe incidents. She said the person was in the justice system at the time and was being held accountable for his crimes. She did say, however, that she thought every single woman in the Bill Cosby case was telling the truth.
In 2016, Lynda received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Gracie Awards.
On April 3, 2018, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce proudly honored Carter with the 2,632nd star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Things In My Head 
It’s a series of video games. I’m a fan. And within 30 minutes of starting ‘The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim’ my character was accosted by a tall, well armed Amazon with a familiar voice. “Hey! That’s Wonder Woman!”.
Don’t think much of her singing though.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you. Have you ever played Lord Of The Rings MMO?
LikeLike
I don’t play multiplayer computer games.
I’ve been a game nerd since I was a kid. Chess, Go, Risk, old style war games with thousands of pieces on maps too big to fit on tables … But the problem was that if I kept winning people got pissed off with me and if I didn’t play as well as I could I got pissed off with myself. I *hate* competition but *love* problem solving. Gaming used to be a balancing act between those two factors.
Apart from not having to spend hours setting up and pushing thousands of pieces, rolling handfuls of dice and looking up complicated rules and results charts the big bonus computer games gave me was not having to worry about upsetting my opponent by playing as well as I could. So I’m not gonna spoil that by going back to competitive gaming.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Lord Of The Rings is the only multiplayer game I play and only occasionally but you can spend hours on there and not see another soul, which is how I like it. People tend to keep to themselves, unless they’re recruiting for raids or difficult quests.
I actually play D & D a lot. We get a couple of friends online, a GM, some dice and we’re good to go. I know a few wargamers and I’ve been to loads of wargame conventions. I only ever buy dice there and history/war books! I’ve only ever played one wargame. It was a cold war scenerio. I was a Russian scientist. It was great.
LikeLike
I used to like her shows and interesting to lean more about her life. Now when I look back at her costume it was typical for male appeal probably so young women would be able to watch this at home. I listened to the song, it was good but not really special. Think she proved how she could get on with life amidst its adversities put to her.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I agree, her costume was for male appeal, there was so little of it! Thanks, Nanette.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, speaking as a male I can say her costume never appealed to me.
Apart from the US flag aspects (a major turnoff) the damn thing may not be big enough to cover her body but it’s rigid and restrictive enough to distort it.
Ladies, us fellas like women’s bodies. Other than the fetishists, us guys don’t like seeing women’s bodies puffed up and restricted and twisted and tortured in all sorts of corsetry and gussetry and bustles and bras. You’ve only ever been dressing like that for yourselves.
LikeLiked by 1 person
There’s other ways we can know the TV show wasn’t going for male appeal.
Think about it. If Wonder Woman routinely changes her clothes that way, how many times did emergency calls come in when she was tipsy, leaving her collapsed in a naked giggling heap halfway through a spin?
How many times did she change in the middle of a crowded, rush hour city street only to realise too late that she still had to pick her suit up from the cleaners?
But did they show any of that on TV? Even in an after hours bloopers episode?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ll always remember how she spun around to change into her superhero outfit, and the awesome theme song, “with your satin tights, fighting for our rights” :)!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hey, how come Superman doesn’t have a song about wearing his undies on the outside?
You’d think the writers would show a bit of initiative.
LikeLiked by 1 person
When you think about it, the spinning costume change must have been the secret of her success. If she can do that with makeup and hairstyles and all her outfit changes that’d be where she finds the spare time to save the world every week.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Spinning to change into her costume was such a simple but brilliant idea. She didn’t need a phone booth like Superman.
LikeLike
From what I’m hearing ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ isn’t exactly a paradigm of empowered feminism. Seems her boyfriend upstages her.
I guess the sequel will be ‘Wonder Housewife 1988’, where she’ll be using her superpowers to spin change baby diapers and lasso her husband to compel him to pick up his socks and put the toilet seat down and look after the kids for a couple of hours on Friday so she can play cards with the girls; thereby serving as an aspirational role model to married women of all ages.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, ‘Wonder Housewife’ 1988 would be more realistic! I’ve also not heard good stuff about the new film, mixed reviews. I was so looking forward to it too!
LikeLike