In 1975, female action heroes were virtually nonexistent in Hollywood. While the women’s liberation movement was marching through the streets of New York, the television landscape was still a male-dominated fortress. Enter Lynda Carter—a 6-foot-tall beauty from Phoenix, Arizona, who would not only break the glass ceiling but do so while wearing a tiara and the American flag. Today, her legacy as the definitive Wonder Woman remains untouched, but the road to the Lasso of Truth was paved with financial desperation and behind-the-scenes battles.
Born in 1951, Carter was a natural performer who made her television debut at just five years old. However, her true passion was music. By fifteen, she was singing in local pizza parlors for $25 a weekend, eventually dropping out of Arizona State University to pursue a singing career that never quite caught fire. She pivoted to the beauty pageant circuit, winning Miss World USA in 1972, though she later described the experience as “painful” and “cruel.”
Continue reading next page…