Rare Photos Of Lynda Carter Reveal How She Made Her Name Before She Wowed As Wonder Woman

Despite just three seasons of Wonder Woman airing between 1975 and 1979, the character has followed Carter around ever since the show was first broadcast. That’s hardly a surprise, though, given how iconic the character of Diana Prince, a.k.a. Wonder Woman, really is. It’s not the type of role that people forget about very easily.

But Carter’s done plenty of other things in her life besides Wonder Woman. She has a huge number of other acting credits to her name, plus she’s also worked as a producer. And far from being confined to work in film and television, Carter boasts many other strings to her bow, too.

For starters, Carter is an accomplished musician, and she’s shared a stage with some huge names over the years. Most notably, we might list Kenny Rogers, Ray Charles, George Benson and Tom Jones. Carter has performed with them all, which isn’t bad for somebody known best for playing a superhero in the ’70s.

As well as everything else, Carter has also found tremendous success as a model and beauty pageant contestant. In fact, this work arguably acted as a springboard for the success she later found in acting. We can say, then, that her early life was essential in shaping her future as a screen star.

A native of Phoenix, Arizona, Carter entered the world on July 24, 1951. She was the third child of Jean and Colby Carter, both of whom had European connections. From her father’s side Carter can trace her roots back to Ireland and England, while her mother’s family came from Spain and France.

By all accounts Carter’s upbringing was a happy one, and she enjoyed a strong rapport with her immediate family. According to her IMDb page, she once remarked, “Some of the best memories of my childhood were of being with my grandmother when she was making tortillas, having to cut the tripe when she made menudo, or sorting the sticks and stones out of the beans on her table.”

From a young age, it was clear that Carter was an entertainer and star in the making. She was singing to crowds at just five years of age, with her debut performance coming at a talent show. Then, as she got older, she started taking more formal lessons in dance and acting.

Throughout her years in school, Carter developed a reputation for performance. And after briefly pursuing academic ambitions at Arizona State University, she ultimately decided to quit formal education and try to make it in showbiz. But her mind wasn’t set on acting at this stage, with music being at the center of her ambitions.

At about this time, Carter was performing with a band called Just Us, which was made up of members playing instruments like the congo, marimba, guitar and double bass. They’d usually play four gigs each week at a pizza parlor, located pretty close to the University of Arizona. But this was just the beginning of her music career.

By the time 1968 rolled around – at which point Carter was 17 – she became a member of another group called The Relatives, so named because it featured a pair of cousins. The band had a three-month residency at a Las Vegas casino, so it represented something of a step up for Carter. By performing with The Relatives, it was possible to get her name out there more.

There was one fly in the ointment: her young age meant it was technically illegal for Carter to even be in a casino. So, in order to get to the stage, she couldn’t just walk through the front door. Instead, she had to enter by way of the kitchen. It was worth the effort, though, as music meant the world to her.

In a quote on her website, Carter has shed light on how significant music has always been to her. She said, “Singing is in my soul. I was on the road performing in my teens and traveled from the Catskills to Las Vegas and from San Francisco to the saloons in Texas.’’

Carter was very young when she became involved in the music industry, but in a chat with The New York Times newspaper, she explained that this was never going to stop her. She said, “My husband once asked my mother, ‘Why on earth would you let your 17-year-old daughter go on tour with a bunch of musicians?’ My mother said, ‘Excuse me, have you ever tried to talk Lynda out of doing something she made up her mind to do?’”

By 1970 Carter had moved on to another band, The Garfin Gathering with Lynda Carter. This group made their debut at a new hotel in San Francisco, though the performance didn’t go exactly to plan. The hotel site hadn’t been quite completed yet, so it was difficult to drum up an audience. The band had to play to hotel staff and guests, but Carter’s performance was still well received. In fact, with a prescience that was downright eerie, someone who’d seen the concert gave her the nickname of “Wonder Woman.”

Carter was a hugely passionate musician during her early adulthood, but she soon came to realize that life on the road was too tough. She wasn’t cut out for touring, so she had to rethink what she wanted to do. She pulled away from music, instead moving into the world of modeling.

From there, it didn’t take long for Carter to find huge success in the modeling industry. In 1972 she signed up for a beauty pageant, which proved to be an influential step in molding her future. She quickly climbed the ranks and ended up in the running for the title of Miss World USA.

Then on September 1, 1972, Carter’s dream came true: she was crowned Miss World USA, becoming the 11th person to hold the title. The contest had been hosted by the famous entertainer Bob Hope: it was Carter’s first brush with the higher echelons of the showbiz world.

As Miss World USA, Carter went on to represent America in the global Miss World competition. This meant traveling to London, where she went up against women from all over the world. And although this time she didn’t actually win, she came close: she made it to the 15-strong shortlist of competitors for the Miss World title. Not too shabby!

Still, the minor disappointment of missing out on the ultimate Miss World crown didn’t prevent her from progressing to the next stage of her career. The profile that she’d developed from these competitions was enough to bring her a certain degree of fame. With that, she was ready to move into a new field.

At about the same time as her beauty pageant career was blossoming, Carter had made the decision to move to Los Angeles. Here, she planned to develop her acting, singing and songwriting skills. She clearly had aspirations to become an all-round, versatile entertainer, without being pigeonholed into one specific area.

Carter was able to showcase her acting talents for the first time in 1974, a couple of years after moving to L.A. She showed up in an episode of Nakia, which was a cop show starring Robert Forster. That was just the start, and Carter was now on the way to finding success in yet another field.

Next came an appearance in a TV movie called A Matter of Wife... And Death. This project was actually a sequel to a movie that had made it to theaters. Shamus had come out in 1973, with Burt Reynolds in the lead role. Sadly, the star didn’t return for the next installment.

Carter’s next acting role came in TV show Matt Helm, in an episode which was called “Panic.” This series was ultimately short-lived, with only one season ever being produced across the years of 1975 and 1976. Looking back now, the action-drama show seems little more than a footnote in television history.

Carter’s role in Matt Helm was pretty minor, showing up as the girlfriend of the titular character. It hardly set the world alight, but appearances like this one were ultimately allowing the actress to cut her teeth in the industry. And it wouldn’t be much longer before she was a household name.

Another of Carter’s early acting roles came in an episode of the popular detective show Starsky & Hutch. Her episode was called “The Las Vegas Strangler,” and it saw the two main characters trying to help out Carter’s character Vicky. Even today, fans of the star look back on her performance here fondly.

The episode was actually longer than most, so it was split into two parts for broadcast. That meant more screen time for Carter, to the delight of her fans. The part allowed her to showcase her skills, but obviously it wasn’t her most significant role from this era.

All these bit-parts in the mid-’70s pale in comparison to Carter’s main role from the period. Her rise from singer to model to actress finally peaked when producers decided to bring a popular comic-book character to the small screen. Carter’s fame and reputation was about to go through the roof.

Back in 1974 attempts had been made to adapt the Wonder Woman character for a television movie, with Cathy Lee Crosby in the starring role. This production didn’t work out, but the ABC network persisted and tried again the following year. This time they cast an up-and-coming actress named Lynda Carter – and the rest is history.

It hadn’t been particularly easy for Carter to land the role. In fact, a whopping 2,000 other women were also auditioned for the part. Carter had only acted in a few other shows and TV movies, with her most notable achievements in showbiz coming from her time in beauty pageants. But she was the right person to bring Wonder Woman to life, and she was chosen.

The timing was perfect for Carter. At the time she was cast in the role, she apparently only had $25 to her name. As she explained in a quote on her IMDb page, “To tell you the truth, I couldn’t pay my next month’s rent when I got the part. I was thrilled to have a pilot of my own.”

Just before Wonder Woman came out, another project that Carter had worked on was released. This time, it was a movie called Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw. This was the first film she’d been in that got a theatrical release, and it was really the last project in which she was a relatively unknown actress.

Next came Wonder Woman, in which Carter first appeared for a special on ABC in 1975. This was then extended to two more specials the following year. Following these hour-long shows, Wonder Woman was given the green light for a full series. Consisting of 11 episodes, this first season was broadcast across 1976 and ’77.

Despite reasonable audience figures for the first full season of Wonder Woman, ABC decided to pass on the option for a follow-up, believing filming it was too big an expense for the network to justify. But happily for Carter, CBS swooped in and bought the rights. To bring down production costs, the show’s setting was changed from the ’40s to the present – which was, of course, the ’70s at that time.

Despite taking on the show, execs at CBS were apparently concerned that Wonder Woman wouldn’t be a success. Reflecting attitudes of that time, it seems that they had concerns about the idea of a woman leading a show. This, they feared, would condemn the program to low ratings.

Looking back on Wonder Woman’s history, Carter once spoke to British newspaper the Daily Mail about the network’s concerns about her gender. She said, “TV executives didn’t think there was a market for a female holding a show like Wonder Woman... Women were buying all their products, yet men dominated the shows.”

As things turned out, of course, the network’s concerns were woefully misguided. Wonder Woman was a big success, with people tuning in to watch the show regardless of their gender. It was something of a watershed moment, proving that female leads could be a recipe for televisual success after all.

Carter did very well out of Wonder Woman. When the show moved to CBS, her partner was Ron Samuels, who also served as her manager. He reportedly managed to work out a deal with the network that saw Carter earn $1 million per year for her work on the show. It was one of the highest-paying jobs a woman had ever picked up in Hollywood at that time.

But despite the immense success that Wonder Woman had brought Carter, she still didn’t think of herself as an A-lister. In a quote on her IMDb, she can be seen reflecting on her status. She said, “I won’t consider myself a star until I’ve had more experience. I think the real stars are people like Streisand, Brando, Dustin Hoffman, Hepburn... Hepburn is my favorite. She epitomizes to me what a star should be.”

So, Carter didn’t regard herself as in the same league as Barbara Streisand or Audrey Hepburn. But she has acknowledged the significance of her portrayal of Wonder Woman. As she revealed in another quote on her IMDb page, “I’d like to think I had something to do with [the enduring popularity of Wonder Woman], but it’s a phenomenon unto itself. And it’s not too bad to be a sort of pop icon, you know? It’s not too tough to handle.”