Lynda Carter Biography

Beauty queen, actress, singer, cosmetics consultant and Amazonian Superhero are all career strings to Lynda Carter’s bow.

She was born in Phoenix, Arizona in July 1951, to a family of Irish/Hispanic descent. Named Linda Jean Cordoba Carter, she later changed to the more exotic ‘Lynda’. Although she appeared on Lew King’s talent show aged five, it wasn’t until her teenage years that she began pursuing a career in show business, initially as a singer. Playing in her local pizzeria, she fronted a series of high school bands before joining The Garfin Gathering, at the age of 17.

The band had its first professional engagement as an opening act at the Sahara Lounge in Las Vegas, which lasted three months. As Lynda was underage, throughout the season she could not enter through the casino – she had to slip in through the hotel’s kitchen.

When little became of singing, Lynda decided to enter a beauty contest. With her statuesque good looks and beautiful blue eyes, she easily won Miss Phoenix, then Miss Arizona and ultimately Miss World-USA.

By 1974, she had moved to Hollywood and studied acting. An unsuccessful audition for TV producer, Larry Gordon, led to him recommending Lynda to his friend, Douglas Kramer, who was looking for a beautiful actress with the chutzpah of a Mary Tyler Moore, but with outstanding athletic ability. The role was DC Comics' 'Wonder Woman'.

Lynda beat over 2,000 actresses to the role she would become synonymous with. The pilot aired in November 1975 to tremendous rating success. Despite initial network concerns that Lynda might be “too sexy” in her revealing superhero costume, the show went on to run until 1979. Increasingly camp, later episodes had titles like 'Disco Devil' and 'Stolen Faces'.

Little thereafter would not match the lasso-wielding heroine, but Lynda did have some success with TV specials and a detective series with Loni Anderson called 'Partners in Crime'. After a sabbatical looking after her family, Lynda is poised to return as a Principal of a High School for Young Superheroes, in a forthcoming Disney film.