Lynda Carter (born July 24, 1951) is an
American actress and singer, best known for being
Miss World USA and for her dual role as
Wonder Woman and her alter ego, Diana Prince, on the 1970s television series
The New Adventures of Wonder Woman (1975–79).
Early life
Carter was born
Linda Jean Córdova Carter in
Phoenix,
Arizona. Her father, Colby Carter, is an art dealer of
Irish descent and her mother, Juana Córdova, is of
Mexican descent with roots in
Chihuahua,
Mexico and previously worked in the telephone industry.
Carter was also upset with some of the marketing of her image. Warner Bros. worked out a deal with the toy company Mego to create a Wonder Woman doll while the series was still on the air. In 1987, on The Late Show with Joan Rivers, Carter commented:
"I think that you're probably familiar with a problem in Hollywood, and that is that they market you, and they use you. They did a mask of my face and put it on the doll, and they put my name on for the first run of it. And then they took my name off and said they didn't have to pay me anymore. So it's the kind of thing that you can be used so much in this industry. I make nothing. I don't even make anything from the reruns. Don't ever settle for net profits. It's called creative accounting."
In 2007, toy company DC Direct released a 13" full-figure statue of Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman, limited to 5,000 pieces; it was re-released in 2010. Also in 2010, DC Direct began selling a 5½-inch bust of Carter's rendition of Wonder Woman to celebrate the character's 75th anniversary.
Other credits
During the late 1970s, she recorded an album,
Portrait. Carter is credited as a co-writer on several songs, and she made numerous guest appearances on variety television programs at the time in a musical capacity. She also sang two of her songs in the 1979
Wonder Woman episode, "Amazon Hot Wax".
In 1977, Carter released a promotional poster through Pro Arts Inc. at the suggestion of her then-husband and manager, Ron Samuels. The poster was very successful despite Carter's dissatisfaction with it. In 1981, during an interview on the NBC television special Women Who Rate a 10,
she said :
"It's uncomfortable because I just simply took a photograph. That's all my participation was in my poster that sold over a million copies was that I took a photograph that I thought was a dumb photograph. My husband said, "Oh, try this thing tied up here, it'll look beautiful. And the photographer said the back-lighting is really terrific. So dealing with someone having that picture up in their... bedroom or their... living room or whatever I think would be hard for anyone to deal with."
In the early 1980s, Carter performed on the Las Vegas Strip and in Atlantic City, highlighting her musical talent.
Carter's other credits include the title role in a biopic of Rita Hayworth, titled Rita Hayworth, Love Goddess (1983) and a variety of her own tv specials: Lynda Carter's Special (1980), Encore! (1980), Celebration (1981), Street Life (1982), and Body And Soul (1984). She starred in a few short-lived TV series, including Partners in Crime (1984) with Loni Anderson and Hawkeye (1994–95) with Lee Horsley. During this time, she also became a celebrity promotional model for Maybelline cosmetics commercials.
Throughout the 1990s, Carter appeared in a string of tv movies that resulted in a resurgence in television appearances. Also, because of the re-syndication of Wonder Woman on such cable networks as FX and SyFy, Carter even participated in two scheduled on-line chat sessions with fans. It was around this time that Carter created her own production company, Potomac Productions. Throughout the 1990s, she has also appeared in commercials for Lens Express (now 1-800 Contacts).
In 2001, Carter was cast in the independent comedy feature Super Troopers as "Vermont Governor Jessman". The writers and stars of the film, the comedy troupe Broken Lizard, with Jay Chandrasekhar directing, had specifically sought Carter for the role. Inspired by the character detour from her usual roles, she agreed to play a washed-up former beauty queen in The Creature of the Sunny Side Up Trailer Park (2004), directed by Christopher Coppola. Carter made her first appearance in a major feature film in a number of years in the big-screen remake of The Dukes of Hazzard (2005), also directed by Chandrasekhar. She also appeared in the comedy Sky High (2005) as "Principal Powers", the head of a school for superheroes. The script allowed Carter to poke fun at her most famous character when she states: "I can't do anything more to help you. I'm not Wonder Woman, y'know." In 2006, she guest-starred in the made-for-cable vampire film Slayer. The following year, Lynda returned to the DC Comics' television world in the Smallville episode "" (2007) playing Chloe Sullivan's Kryptonite-empowered mother.
Carter has also done voiceovers for video games, performing voices for the nord and orsimer (orc) females in two computer games of The Elder Scrolls series, and . These games were developed by Bethesda Softworks; her husband, businessman Robert A. Altman, is Chairman and CEO of Bethesda's parent company, ZeniMax Media.
From September to November 2005, Carter played "Mama Morton" in the West End London production of Chicago. In 2006, her rendition of "When You're Good to Mama" was officially released on the Chicago: 10th Anniversary Edition CD box set. In May 2007, Carter began touring the U.S. with her one-woman musical cabaret show, "An Evening with Lynda Carter". She has played engagements at such venues as Feinstein's At Loews Regency in New York, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. In June 2009, her second album, "At Last", was released and reached #10 on Billboard's Jazz Albums Chart.
Personal life
Carter has been married twice. Her first marriage was to her former
talent agent Ron Samuels from 1977 to 1982. In January 1984, Carter married
Washington, D.C.,
attorney Robert A. Altman, law partner of the influential and distinguished
Clark Clifford. The Altmans have two children, James and Jessica, That same month, she admitted in an interview to
People magazine that she had entered a
rehabilitation clinic for treatment of
alcoholism.
Filmography
{|class="wikitable" style="font-size: 90%;" border="2" cellpadding="4" background: #f9f9f9;
|- align="center"
! colspan=4 style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Film
|- align="center"
! style="background: #CCCCCC;" | Year
! style="background: #CCCCCC;" | Film
! style="background: #CCCCCC;" | Role
! style="background: #CCCCCC;" | Notes
|-
| 1976
|
Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw
| Bobbie Jo Baker
|
|-
| 1993
|
Lightning in a Bottle
| Charlotte Furber
|
|-
| 2001
|
Super Troopers
| Governor Jessman
| a.k.a.
Broken Lizard's Super Troopers
|-
| 2004
|
The Creature of the Sunny Side Up Trailer Park
| Lynette
| a.k.a.
Creature
|-
| rowspan=2|2005
|
Sky High
| Principal Powers
|
|-
|
The Dukes of Hazzard
| Pauline
|
|-
| 2006
|
Tempbot
| Mary Alice
|
Short film
|-
| 2007
|
Tattered Angel
| Hazel Anderson
|
|-
|- align="center"
! colspan=4 style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Television
|- align="center"
! style="background: #CCCCCC;" | Year
! style="background: #CCCCCC;" | Title
! style="background: #CCCCCC;" | Role
! style="background: #CCCCCC;" | Notes
|-
| 1974
|
Nakia
| Helen Chase
| 1 episode
|-
| 1975
|
Matt Helm
| Bobbi Dee
| 1 episode
|-
| rowspan=2|1976
|
A Matter of Wife... And Death
| Zelda
| TV movie
|-
|
Starsky and Hutch
| Vicky
| 1 episode
|-
| 1975-79
|
Wonder Woman
|
Wonder Woman
| 59 episodes
|-
| rowspan=2|1980
|
The Last Song
| Brooke Newman
| TV movie
|-
|
The Muppet Show
| Herself
| 1 episode
|-
| 1981
|
Born to Be Sold
| Kate Carlin
| TV movie
|-
| 1982
|
Hotline
| Brianne O'Neill
| TV movie
|-
| rowspan=2|1984
|
Rita Hayworth: The Love Goddess
|
Rita Hayworth
| TV movie
|-
|
Partners in Crime
| Carole Stanwyck
| 13 episodes
|-
| 1987
|
Stillwatch
| Patricia Traymore
| TV movie
|-
| 1989
|
| Helen Durant
| TV movie
|-
| rowspan=2|1991
|
Daddy
| Charlotte Sampson
| TV moviea.k.a.
Danielle Steel's Daddy
|-
|
Posing: Inspired by Three Real Stories
| Meredith Lanahan
| TV moviea.k.a.
I Posed for Playboy
|-
| 1994-95
|
Hawkeye
| Elizabeth Shields
| 22 episodes
|-
| rowspan=2|1996
|
When Friendship Kills
| Kathryn Archer
| TV moviea.k.a.
A Secret Between Friends: A Moment of Truth Movie
|-
|
She Woke Up Pregnant
| Susan Saroyan
| TV moviea.k.a.
Crimes of Silence
|-
| 1997
|
A Prayer in the Dark
| Emily Hayworth
| TV movie
|-
| 1998
|
Someone to Love Me
| Diane Young
| TV moviea.k.a.
Someone to Love Me: A Moment of Truth Moviea.k.a.
Girl in the Backseat
|-
| 1999
|
Family Blessings
| Lee Reston
| TV moviea.k.a.
LaVyrle Spencer's 'Family Blessings'
|-
| rowspan=2|2003
|
Terror Peak
| Dr. Janet Fraser
| TV movie
|-
|
Hope & Faith
| Summer Kirkland
| 1 episode
|-
| rowspan=2|2005
|
| Lorraine Dillon
| 1 episode
|-
|
Law & Order
| Lorraine Dillon
| 1 episode
|-
| 2006
|
Slayer
| Colonel Jessica Weaver
| TV movie
|-
| 2007
|
Smallville
| Moira Sullivan
| 1 episode
|}
Albums
1978: Portrait
2009: At Last
References
External links
Official Site
Official YouTube Channel
Fan Site
Category:1951 births
Category:Actors from Arizona
Category:American film actors
Category:American television actors
Category:Arizona State University alumni
Category:Hispanic and Latino American actors
Category:Hispanic and Latino American people
Category:American people of English descent
Category:Living people
Category:American people of Mexican descent
Category:Miss World contestants
Category:People from Phoenix, Arizona
Category:People self-identifying as alcoholics
