“This is a dual role,” Lynda Carter says of her famous stint on the iconic

1970s television series Wonder Woman.

She means that the role of Wonder Woman meant also playing her alter-ego secret

identity Diana Prince.

But the fact is, Lynda Carter, the person, has been playing another dual

role for a long time now.

On the surface, there’s a stunning beauty that was on vivid display in that

outrageously revealing Wonder Woman costume and who seems to have faced down

the years since then with little consequence.

But underneath those good looks is another Lynda Carter, an outspoken woman

of varied tastes and interests – a self-described “iPod shuffle.”

Last fall, she made headlines by saying of Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah

Palin, who had been compared to Wonder Woman, “She’s the anti-Wonder Woman.

She’s judgmental and dictatorial, telling people how they’ve got to live their

lives. And a superior religious self-righteousness. That’s just not what Wonder

Woman is about.”

This “secret” Lynda Carter is also a surprisingly accomplished vocalist, who

had a promising singing career prior to being cast as Wonder Woman, and who did

a series of highly acclaimed (and Emmy-nominated) television specials in the

1970s and 80s.

Recently, I got a chance to chat with Lynda about her days as Wonder Woman

(of course!), but also her thoughts on Adam versus Kris, the Carrie Prejean

controversy, and her decision to finally return to her first love, music, with

an engaging new CD of standards and classic songs, At Last.

AfterElton.com: When did you become aware that you were a feminist

icon? Were you aware at the time when you were filming Wonder Woman?

Lynda Carter: Oh, absolutely. Yes. I was very aware of it. As a matter of

fact, I also felt that my personal character had to be non-predatory in any

way. I would be the first person if some woman's guy was looking at me wrong,

I'd pop him upside the head and say, "Get a grip!" Wonder Woman would

expect that. She was never against men, she was just for women. I was very

deliberate in my approach.

AE: I thought one of the most subversive things about the show,

and I don't mean that in a bad way, was that Steve Trevor was always the one

getting into trouble. He'd fight, but ultimately he'd be captured, and it was

Wonder Woman who had to rescue him. It's a complete turning of the tables. She

was never a victim.

LC: I think that's part of the empowerment, and it's also the secret self,

the archetype that appeals to gay and lesbian men and women, that there's a

secret self that is waiting to be unveiled, that is powerful and won't ever be

a victim. I think she was a great character, and I was privileged to play that

character.

Lyle Waggoner, who played Col. Steve Trevor

AE: When did you became aware that you had a strong gay following?

LC: Interestingly enough, in Bette Midler's early career, I thought she was

the most original sounding person I'd heard. So I sort of ate up what her story

was about. I was already on the road, we're not that far apart in age, and she

was doing these gay bathhouses. Coming from Arizona, I didn't know anything about any of

that stuff. There were all these stories about how the gay population was so

supportive and really drove her early success, and they were right. She's

amazing. So I was told, "Girl, I'll tell you something, if you ever have a

gay following you will know that you've made it."

AE: Hey, we've got good taste!

LC: Yeah! [It was maybe fifteen years ago and] I was sitting at my home

here in Potomac, Maryland, and did an interview with a young woman from a gay

publication, a lesbian magazine I think it was, and she starts talking about [that

fact that I’m a gay icon], and I'm kind of looking at her, and she goes,

"You don't know, do you? You're so cool!" And I was like, "Tell

me! Tell me!" And I was dancing around. "Oh my God! I can't believe

it!" It was great.

AE: Well, I'm sorry we didn't get the word to you sooner!

LC: I know! I so get it though. I so get it. I'm such a champion of civil

liberties for the gay and lesbian population, like I am for women and being

able to choose.

AE: I'm curious if you're friends with any of the other female

action icons: Lindsay Wagner, Charlie's Angels, or even Lucy Lawless who plays Xena? Have you met any of these other

actors?

LC: I've met Lucy Lawless, and she couldn't have been nicer. We had a nice

conversation. I think how she approached her character, how the show approached

her, was great. Lindsay Wagner was a friend of mine a million years ago, I just

don't have the opportunity to see her, but whenever I meet a mutual friend, I

always send her my best. Same with Jaclyn Smith. I never knew Kate Jackson, but

Farrah, we used to all go on the same interviews for the same one part.

[laughs]

AE: I read in an interview from a couple weeks ago that you've

been in touch with the producers of the Wonder Woman movie, and it

sounds like there is some progress. Is there a role for you?

LC: I have a lot of friends over at Warner Brothers, and I get updates now

and again, but it really depends on the director and the script. I hope it's a

blockbuster. If there's a place for me, great, but if there isn't, that's okay,

too. I don't think I would do a cameo. Unless there was a real part where there

was something more than just a little, bitty thing, I'd just let them bask in

the glory. It needs to be done and done well. I wish them the best.

AE: Has there been any talk of a specific role for you?

LC: Yeah, there has been. Off and on, but then they switch gears, and

they're not happy with the script. It's fairly simple. Everything has to be

character driven. It has to be a good story. It's not about the effects. Those

will all take care of themselves. There'll be some great things, but if they

have a good story, just the story itself, it doesn't even have to be very

complicated, you know?

AE: I also think, I'm not the first to say this, you're so

associated with the role, unlike other superheroes. I think everybody agrees

you were perfectly cast. They really need to get the casting right. It needs to

be someone who can really reinvent the character.

LC: Sometimes that's a problem. I don't think it's as much reinventing as

not playing Wonder Woman. You can't play Wonder Woman. You play a person

who happens to have these powers, these skills. You have to play her as just a

woman. You have all the opportunity in the world, because this is a dual role.

I would never dumb her down. I wanted people to know Wonder Woman through Diana

Prince.

AE: I know you are a former beauty pageant winner...

LC: [laughs] God, you're really bringing up all the old stuff.

Lynda Carter in 1972, during her reign as Miss U.S.A.

Photo credit: Central Press/Getty Images

AE: I know you had an opinion on Sarah Palin, but I'm curious what

you make of the whole Miss California Carrie Prejean controversy.

LC: I disagree with her stance [on same-sex marriage], but I think she was used by this group. I

think she wasn't well-informed. Anything that is trying to take away personal

freedom is not a very good thing. It's not what the nation is about. You can

disagree, but it seemed a little bit self-righteous. You do provocative

photographs, then you can't go preaching morals. You walk around in a bikini,

and then you're going to go tell other people how to live their lives?

I just

think it's shameful, honestly. That being said, I do think she's just

ill-informed and misinformed. I think that's the problem with most people that

don't get it. It's like, how do I make myself short? You want me to become a

double amputee so I can satisfy your need for me to be short?

AE: Do you watch American Idol.

LC: I do! There's so many talented people.

AE:  Who are you rooting for, Adam and Kris? [The final winner hadn’t been announced when this interview

was done.]

LC: I think as an artist, the most original person, and he'll be successful

whether he wins it or not, is Adam. Although, I do like Kris. I mean what's not

to like?

AE: The thing that strikes me about both of them is that they're

so self-assured, and they have all the attention of the world on them. I wonder

if you can relate, because for at least a few years there, you were just as

popular as a person can get.

LC: You know what? It's very isolating. It's about your work. That's not a

boohoo or anything, I don't expect anyone to feel sorry for anyone, but by

virtue of the fact that you are so popular, you lose a piece of your everyday

stuff, of a certain kind of interaction that is important to keep.

AE: I suppose you have people telling you you're great, exactly

what you want to hear.

LC: People aren't going to come up to you and say, "Oh, I think you're

just so mediocre!" Unless somebody is just a jerk, they wouldn't. It is

what it is. It's not easy.

AE: I can only imagine how busy a person is with that kind of

schedule.

LC: I was thinking the same thing. When do they have time to work on their

music? They're doing the commercials, and the parades, and everything

else...Wow!

AE: But you must have experienced that.

LC: I was pretty busy, yeah, but I didn't have a family then, and that was what

I'd worked toward all my life. But it was still isolating. I didn't have a lot

of opportunity to learn how to be in a relationship, really. We moved around a

lot at first as a kid, and then I was on the road at 17, and new in town by the

time I got to LA, and then famous again with that whirlwind. I did really want

substance in my life, and when I stopped with the road for my children, it was

really because I didn't want to miss out. It wasn't just selflessness. I didn't

want to miss out on that.

AE: But where do you go once you've been on top of the

world?

LC: Substance? [laughs] I'm going through substance, baby!

AfterElton.com: You know, I really loved your new CD.

Lynda Carter: Thank you very much!

AE: We get a lot of material here, and I was very pleasantly

surprised by how good it was.

LC: I get that a lot. I did music all my life, it's kind of what I did, but

it wasn't something anybody knew me for. I started singing professionally at

14. That's how I earned enough money to move to California and study acting,

and get into that. That’s what I started with.

Photo credit: Paul Morigi/WireImage

AE: You're absolutely right. It's not fair of people to have

expectations because you're famous for one thing, but you happen to have this

other talent.

LC: No, no, no! I think it's totally fair. I totally get it. That was more

my point. I do get it.

AE: I have very vivid memories of your TV specials when I was

younger. I re-watched them before talking to you, and I didn't realize because

I was too young at the time to see how really daring they were.

LC: They really were! Looking back, I think the same thing.

AE: Was this your idea? How did this come about? And how were you

able to get this on TV?

LC: I had been singing, and when I got famous, it took it into a whole new

arena. When they found out I could sing, I played Vegas and I did tours all

over. Then CBS saw me, and that was the time before MTV, and we approached it

in that way, a very MTV way, where it was more about vignettes, the story about

the song more than concert stuff. We did have concert things in it, but we

really did these vignettes. It was great. You're right, I was very lucky to be

able to do that.

AE: The guest stars you had! Was this a deliberate effort to

reinvent yourself?

LC: No. It was right during Wonder Woman, and it was really to

broaden and take advantage of the fame in other areas. I got the offer to do it

and I wanted to make them very special. It was more about taking advantage of

opportunities.

AE: Obviously, music is very important to you. As you said, it preceded

the acting, and followed Wonder Woman, and you've been performing live

all these years...

LC: I actually stopped when I got pregnant with my son. I'd been on the

road since I was 17-years-old, and it's not a life that's conducive to raising

a family. It ends up being all about the "current." It's not about

the children.

Carter with son Lane in 2002

Photo credit: STEPHEN JAFFE/AFP/Getty Images

It's an unrealistic life, and I didn't want that for my children. By the

time I was ready to sing again, it was just never the right opportunity. My

son's last year of high school, he was about to be a senior in high school, so

it was about four years ago, I got an offer to do Chicago in the West

End in London, the musical. That really started everything again.

Alan Cumming and Cheyenne Jackson join Carter backstage for

opening night of her cabaret act at Feinstein's in New York (2008)

Photo credit: Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic

AE: So once you got back on stage, that's what precipitated the

CD?

LC: Exactly. My son was going away. I cried every time he mentioned

college, I'd tear up. I realized I had to refocus on what it is I wanted to do.

My daughter's now a senior in high school, and she'll be going off in the fall

so it's been geared towards finding what I really want to do. That coupled with

what opportunities present themselves. Just because I want to act again doesn't

mean I'll get cast in all these great roles. It's in deliberate steps, still

maintaining quite a presence at home in my daughter's last year of high school.

AE: Listening to the CD, and listening to you now, it certainly

seems like this project was a labor of love in the best possible sense, and you

don't have anybody to please except yourself. I think maybe that's why the CD

is so good.

LC: It's also that I've sort of moved on with my performance. The more that

I work with these great musicians, it's very inspiring. I work very closely

with my musical director back in the day, and we came up with a lot of things

together. I may bring ten songs to this group of musicians I work with, and

they might do a track for me so I can see how it feels, and then, I take it

down to Tennessee and we work on it.

So it ends up being something I'm having fun with because it's irreverent,

or I always wanted to do, or I like the message, I like the way it makes me

feel. I'm not so much doing my parent's old standards that have been done so

much. It's a lot of songs that growing up I knew. I'm gearing more toward that

kind of thing, as well as writing some. I don't know what's going to end up in

the show the next time. I don't know what I'm going to end up with. It'll just

present itself. I'm not really a genre. I'm more of an iPod shuffle –

surprising things. I don't really have a bag.

AE: Thank you so much for speaking with us. The CD is going on my

iPod.

LC: Thank you so much!

Lynda Carter’s CD, At Last, will be released June 9th. Visit Lynda

online at lyndacartersings.com.