LYNDA CARTER, of ‘Wonder Woman’ fame, has returned to her performing roots in a series of cabaret shows, including a stop at the Kennedy Center. (Photo courtesy of Scott Stander and Associates)
advertisement
advertisement
|
GREG MARZULLO
Friday, May 09, 2008
Ask most gay men about Wonder Woman and they’ll probably spin around and strike the iconic pose Lynda Carter made legend during the 1970s television series.
“I enjoy listening to people’s stories when they tell me about Wonder Woman,” Carter says. “It’s like hearing a song that meant a lot at a time in your life. “
On May 10, Carter will be performing in a much different vein during, “An Intimate Evening with Lynda Carter” at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater. The cabaret-style concert is an eclectic smattering of music that Carter loves, including jazz standards, blues and even a James Taylor song.
“I would say that my show is pretty representative of who I really am,” she says. “I’m somewhat irreverent. I don’t wear glittery costumes. I’m not trying to pretend to be a chanteuse. I’m not trying to get more famous. It’s just for the love of it. I hope people like it and enjoy it and are kind of with me on this journey of being in the same room together at a specific time, enjoying music together and connecting with one another.”
Long before Wonder Woman was even a twinkle in Carter’s striking blue eyes, she was singing in a high school band in her hometown of Phoenix, Ariz., playing for school dances. At 17, she went on the road with another band, touring Las Vegas and Reno partially on the sly because the tour managers didn’t know she was underage.
“One of the pit bosses came over… and said, ‘Tell me, please Lynda, tell me that the rumor that I heard is wrong.’ I said, ‘What rumor?’ ‘That you’re 17,’ and I said, ‘Yeah.’ He made me go through the kitchen. All the guards were alerted.”
She quit the road in 1972, and joined a modeling agency that was producing the local leg of the Miss USA Pageant.
“Three weeks later, I was Miss USA,” Carter says, and she ended up moving to Los Angeles, studying acting and singing studio jingles for commercials.
OF COURSE, SHE CATAPULTED into fame with the “Wonder Woman” series, which premiered in 1976.
“I love that she is an iconic figure and the fact that I played her is fantastic,” says Carter, who offered a thoughtful explanation for the character’s connection to gay fans.
“[Wonder Woman] was the goddess within. It’s the secret self. It’s the self that is so full of hope and goodness and life and love and standing up for what you believe in and having to keep another part of your life secret for whatever period of time.”
Carter also says she thought a lot about what the character could mean to women, and she didn’t want the heroine to be a predatory, threatening female.
“I wanted women to have the understanding and the feeling that Wonder Woman was on their side. There was no need to worry about her. If their loved ones, their boyfriends, husbands would be looking at me, I’d smack them upside the head and tell them to get a grip.”
When the series ended three years later (it enjoyed a healthy life in reruns), one of Carter’s stipulations was that she got to keep one of the costumes — although she won’t reveal where it’s hidden.
Perhaps the red, white and blue outfit is squirreled away somewhere at her home in Potomac, Md., where she’s lived with her husband of 24 years.
Since the end of “Wonder Woman,” Carter has appeared in various TV films, specials, serial episodes and mainstream films. (She hasn’t been approached about a cameo in the upcoming “Justice League: Mortal” film, due to be released in 2009 — something that doesn’t bother Carter. “The baton needs to be passed on with these iconic characters.”)
In 2006, she went to London to perform the role of Matron Mama Morton in a West End production of Kander and Ebb’s “Chicago.”
“I had really kind of given up singing to raise my family. I’d been on the road for a long time, and I knew it wasn’t something I wanted for my kids.”
Her son, Jamie, is a sophomore in college and her daughter, Jessica, is a junior in high school. After talking the “Chicago” gig over with her children and getting their blessing, she got to work and performed the role for two months.
“Then I decided to see if [singing] was something that I really wanted to do still, if it had the organic feel of it for me.”
She did head to the theaters again, playing the current concert show to sold-out houses in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York.
“Things have always happened to me when it’s the right time, it’s been the nature of my life,” she says. “If there was a great role in a movie, I’d probably do it. Sometimes I turn things down and sometimes I accept them. I kind of try to go with the flow and enjoy my life where I am now.”
|
 |
