On this section you will find textual transcripted phrases or quotes from Lynda Carter TV interviews which are worth quoting. This quotes will be the perfect complement to the biography section since it will be right out of Lynda Carter's mouth and not taken from printed media where some times they may be edited. On every update you will find more quotes.

BACKCHAT interview on FX Cable TV, September 18, 1994

Question: You’ve done a great job of not getting pigeonholed in something (Wonder Woman) that could have very easily stuck with you…has that been a strategic plan on your part?

LYNDA: “I’ve never tried to get away from Wonder Woman, I always embraced her because I really loved her, she was, you know, a great lady of the 80’s at the time, and I always embraced the character. It was so much fun to do, I did things that, you know, I did a lot of my own stunts, it was a really wonderful time in my life……when I left it I was ready to, I was ready to go on to something else, it was 5 years, it was a very sad parting, but one that I was ready for.”

Question: Have your children seen Wonder Woman, and if they have, what to they think about it?

LYNDA: “Well, my children, Jamie and Jessica, they’ve seen Wonder Woman, and I think that they were…taken aback, because I’m mommy, you know, and so to see me in something like that they were kind of embarrassed by it…I’m mommy, and I like to stay Mommy.”

EVERYDAY WITH JOAN LUNDEN, June, 1989

Question: What do you think are the most important things you’ve learned about being a Mom?

LYNDA: “Someone told me something or gave me a bit of advice, a really wonderful female writer in New York City, she said to me, very quietly and held my hand, she said Lynda, respect your son, have respect for him…..it made me think about what his perspective is from down there, and when you think about having respect, like you have respect for a person that you admire, or whatever, you start thinking of them a little differently, you start, uh, thinking from their point of view and maybe what’s really going on in their mind as to why they’re acting or reacting the way they are…I find that it really has given me a special kind of love for my son.”

OPRAH’S CELEBRITY HALL OF FAME, 1995

LYNDA: Wonder Woman really is a phenomenon unto herself, the show and the character really has a life of its’ own. She represented, uh, hope, I think, for young women, and she also represented for young men, mind you, which I get a lot of mail on, the type of, like the perfect woman, one that could be beautiful and smart and fun and strong. I’m sure they thought a lot more about her with the costume, too, but we won’t get into that. I think it’s pretty strange being a pop icon and not being dead!”

GEORGE AND ALANA, FEBRUARY 15, 1996

Question: I think that you should tell them (the audience) what the movie (“A Secret Among Friends”) is about:

LYNDA: “The movie, “A Secret Among Friends,” is about, I’m recently divorced and moved to Seattle with my two daughters, and my daughter becomes friends with the popular, thin girl, and she becomes bulimic with her, so this is their secret………the movie was so compelling to me when I read the script because it’s not a disease of the week movie, it doesn’t deal with just the ravages of anorexia, although it does show that, but it’s a lot about the relationship between the mother and the daughter, and how the healing processes, what really happens, how the family falls apart, and how helpless the mother feels in dealing with this child that’s starving herself, is killing herself, day by day. I can’t say enough about this movie in terms of the things I’ve done recently, I was really happy to do it and I think it’s going to help a lot of people in terms of mother-daughter relationships in the teen years when they go through so much.”

CBS THIS MORNING, live March 1988

(Perhaps the first on the air interview since she gave birth to her son James on January 14th, 1988)

Question: “Has motherhood surprised you?”

LYNDA: “Yes, I think so, I had all these fantasies and visions of the sleeping child, and all these wonderful ideas, however, motherhood is a little busier than that.”

Question: “Do you have to be almost Wonder Woman to be a mother, do you think?”

LYNDA: “Well, I’ll tell you, the truth is I have so much respect for my mother and women all over the United States now that have two and three children AND an infant, I don’t know how they do it, because my hands are full. I’m loving it, but they’re full.”

Question: “You waited a long time to have a child, were you worried or concerned?” (about the ability to become pregnant).

LYNDA: “Well, I suppose that there was some concern, but I was….I always wanted to have children, the time was never right, I spent the last fifteen years focused on my career, and, uh, I decided that it was time I focused on the real things of life, not just what was going to be in reruns next.”

Questions: “Was that a difficult process to go through, though the determination to say “I’m going to stop for a while, I’m going to have this baby?”

LYNDA: “Well, the decision wasn’t a difficult one because I wanted a baby so much and I’ve wanted a baby for so long, but uh, the reality I think is a little more difficult. The last nine months, as soon as I got pregnant I quit working because I wanted to enjoy it, and I’m really not planning on jumping back into work until he’s a little bit older……I really want to enjoy him for a while.”

LARRY KING LIVE, CNN live in Washington DC, Fall, 1986

Question: “What got you into production?” (of your own shows, like her make-up video and “Stillwatch”).

LYNDA: “It was by accident, Larry, I started my first television variety special, and the producer of it and director had one if his projects picked up by the networks and said he couldn’t do it and I was all geared up for production, so I said “well, why not,” and I walked into it and hired appropriate people to head it and learned from that point on. That was nine years ago, so I’ve done quite a bit since then. I’ve kept it low profile, because at that time women in television at all weren’t really thought of as anything.”

Question: “Tell me about the video (Lynda Carter’s Secrets to the Perfect Makeup”).

LYNDA: “The video was something I did just a month before I started this project (her TV-movie “Stillwatch”) and I had had many request through Maybelline…..for how do you do make up, how do I put it on so it looks natural, so that I don’t look like a clown when I go out. So I said, all right, lets’ put something together and I produced it……there’s a woman, a 55 year old woman, then there’s a 19 year old girl that apply makeup using my techniques so that it can be for both the older woman and the younger woman.”

Question: “Did you have to wear body makeup as Wonder Woman, did they put makeup all over you?”

LYNDA: (laughing) “I can’t imagine that you’d want to know, but ….I hated the body makeup that they used put on me, and I used to try to put all this body makeup on, so what I decided was that I would find another way, and I just took a large blusher brush and took regular blusher and used to just put that around and…just blushed!”

Question: (from NY caller) “I wanted to say that I enjoyed the Wonder Woman shows very much, and wondered if Lynda Carter ever would be interested in doing more Wonder Woman shows?” Larry King “or how about a Wonder Woman return special?”

LYNDA: “Oh goodness gracious, a Wonder Woman, oh since? Would I, no. I had thought about doing, there was talk about a movie, a Wonder Woman movie right after ‘Superman’ came out, doing a movie on Wonder Woman, and it never came about, for what reason I really don’t know, but I don’t know anymore, it would be intriguing to me to think about it, but I’m sort of on to…. other things now.”

Question: (from Nebraska caller) “Since you are such a beautiful woman, I was wondering if you’ve been approached by a magazine such Playboy or that…have a nude pictorial?”

LYNDA: “Uh, yes I have been approached, many times, and I, uh, that was even before I achieved any celebrity status at all. There’s seems to be an onslaught of these people that like to exploit women, and it has not been something that I like, or that I approve of, or the people who distribute these magazines…..I have had…I know people... I have to be honest about this because I feel so strongly, that it is a degrading thing for women. I think if a woman chooses to do it, then that is her own choice, and if she wants to do it then I don’t feel badly that she wants to do it, but if there is pressure put on her to, further her career, or to make her a celebrity, then I feel that it is total exploitation and it makes me mad.”

Question: (from Ohio caller) “Hi, speaking of exploitation, I wanted to ask Lynda if she felt exploited in her role as Wonder Woman, with her costume?”

LYNDA: “Not at all, as a matter of fact, there was this big controversy, and it’s kind of funny now, between the women’s organizations, and they ended putting me on the cover of the new woman’s magazine, as the next role model for women, because it was a woman that looked great uh, I’m saying Wonder Woman did, not Lynda Carter, but of a woman that looked that way, of course it was almost a 40’s bathing suit, so it wasn’t showing nearly as much as bathing suits do now. So it was very protected, she had a sort of a asexual role, that’s my opinion anyway, you may disagree. But I felt that, on the contrary what I received from the mail from the children, boys and girls, have felt that is was a very strong role model for young women, that you could be pretty and still be strong, and say, speak your mind, and go ahead and do what you wanted to do, fool people, even manipulate people on occasion.”

Question from Larry King: “How about the singing and dancing, this is new?”

LYNDA: “No, I’ve been doing this for many many many years. I think that I enjoy singing and dancing, it gives me the most immediate joy, it’s something that I, giving me a great amount of personal pleasure, uh, I’m going to Rome, to do a television show there, and some personal appearances, and then I do Atlantic City, and then I’m in Los Angeles, I doing a tennis tournament in December, I…it seems like they’ve got me...

Interrupting question: “How do you keep the marriage going well?”

LYNDA: (laughing) “Well, he comes out every week and I see him every weekend.”

Question:  “It is hard to keep the marriage going, seriously. I mean a bi-coastal arrangement, is that hard?”

LYNDA: “Actually it is, I think it takes effort, it does take effort on the part of, my husband and me to, we have to make an effort to make sure that we spend the kind of time that we need to spend together, but if effort….in terms of heart or in terms of desire, absolutely not. Because when I’m gone, I’m gone to work. When he’s here, he working, as you know, what he does here in this city, he works very hard and he works very late at night, and when I’m home, we spend the quality time together, so I’m here for two or three months…..a little distance, it’s all right, as long as you make the effort to spend that time together, and both of you feel the same way about it, and if I have to fly back here or he flies there, it’s every weekend. We’ve missed two weekends in three years!”

HOUR MAGAZINE WITH GARY COLLINS, Syndicated, December 1986

Question: Gary Collins): “I remember reading an interview you gave and you said you finally are doing it your way, you’re running your life the way you want to. Why has it taken so long?”

LYNDA:  (laughing) I don’t know…

Question:  (continuing) Now we look at Lynda Carter and she’s been successful for a number of years, we thought you were running it the way you wanted to all along.”

LYNDA: “Well, I think that it’s a misconception on a lot of people’s parts about, oh, actresses that gain celebrity quickly, things happen to you so quickly, and the amount of people that come to you saying ‘I can help you, I can do this, I can do that,’ and you say all right and start making money and someone says I can handle your money and I can handle your publicity and I can manage you, and I can, so you start saying yes, yes, yes, oh well all right, and you turn around five years later and you don’t really have a lot of money left because you’ve paid it all out to all these people, and, uh, you, you’re working all the time and you don’t really have a life, that’s what happened to me. I turned around and I realized that I was a very unhappy …….young woman, and I had everything that I had desired in my life, and, I was unhappy. So I made some changes.”

Question: “So in other words, you were managed right into unhappiness.”

LYNDA: “Yes.”

Questions:  “I remember reading also about your marriage to Ron Samuels, that it was based on managing your career, not on a relationship. That must be very difficult”

LYNDA: “ Yes, well, I, I didn’t think of it that way at the time because, uh, when you’re very young you think someone’s taking care of you and your hero and that sort of thing, when it turns out that, uh, you really are just working all the time, you don’t have any quality time, there’s no enjoying one another’s company, ah, with the exception of what it looks like to the public, and, and uh, I made some hard decisions at that time of my life, I was unhappy, and I made changes, and they were ones that once I made up my mind I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and, ah, I did it. And it was difficult, because I think divorce is probably, ah, one of the hardest things on, on your ego, and on, on your self-esteem, it really can wreak havoc on your life.”

Question: “And you were single for, what a couple of years, two, three years?”

LYNDA: “Yeah, I was single for a little while…"

Question: "...then you found a gentleman named Bob Altman…"

LYNDA: “Robert Altman”

Question:  (continues) “not the movie producer-director, but he’s an attorney, very successful attorney in Washington, and that works real well for you.”

LYNDA: “Yes, he’s a thinking man, he has his own career, certainly outside of mine, but, the big difference in relationships, I think, of people…argue one way or another whether you should have a relationship with someone in your business, or definitely someone outside of your business, I, I don’t think that it has anything to do with that, I think it has to do with, whether or not you are supportive of one another, truly supportive, that, that Mary Ann (Mary Ann Mobley, Gary’s wife) understands that you’ve got to work the kind of hours you do, you understand when she does.”

Question: “Well, what is it, here you’ve got a man that comes from a totally different background, what does that do for you, is it like sharing something that he doesn’t know anything about, is that exciting, and learning about his life?”

LYNDA: “Actually, his uh, learning about Washington, being in Washington, I live in Washington DC now, I have for the last four years, and Washington is so exciting, it’s so interesting to be around these, uh, very famous political figures, the movers and the shakers, the people that run our country, that make the laws that we live by. That is very exciting, and its’ interesting that they’ve accepted me, uh, oh, on a whole different level because they’re excited that I’m one of the few people in our business that lives in Washington.”

Question: “I got to tell you something, when you come out of the water with that…evidently you’re doing something about (Maybelline) no-run mascara, that’s the greatest shot in the world! The only other time I got that excited was Debra, Debra Paget, when she came out of the water…you’ve done wonders for Maybelline.”

LYNDA: (laughing) “Well, I ah they’ve done wonder for me too, I, uh, I think it’s been a very health and long association. We uh, I’ve been with them seven years, and I have just signed a new contract for another five years.”

Question: “And the video is out, it’s doing well (“Lynda Carter’s Secrets to the Perfect Makeup”)

LYNDA: “Yes, the video just is…secrets to the perfect…K-Mart, uh K-Mart, it’s at K-Mart (flustered and laughing at her mistake), it’s at K-Mart and Sears…(giving up) it’s, I can’t believe I said that” (laughing).

Note: Footage from the video is shown of Lynda applying makeup.

Question: “Well that’s wonderful, you look terrific, you look good without makeup.”

LYNDA: “Thank you, that was, that was kind of interesting, I, uh, had to make a decision, whether or not I was going to play it really straight and say, ok, no makeup, and I go in front of the world with this video, without makeup, and that was the only way to go, so…it was really not a choice.

Gary Collins: “Yeah, well I don’t know if she’s really brave or not, she looks pretty good to me with or without!”

LYNDA: (blushing) “Thank you.”

LARRY KING LIVE, October 21, 1991  PART ONE

Question: Larry King (introducing:)  “Lynda Carter is back on the air, the former beauty queen, star of the hit series, “Wonder Woman” returns in the upcoming tv movie “Daddy”, based on the novel by Danielle Steele, it will air this Wednesday night on NBC, and then you come in again, when, in November…..?”

LYNDA:   “November 5th, with a wonderful movie called “Posing” about a 37 year old woman, who, sort of for inexplicable reasons, decides to disrupt her life and pose for Playboy….it’s also a true story, there are two other stories about women who have done the same thing, and it’s…it’s an entirely different look at, you know, at why someone would do that, and disrupt their lives.”

Question:   “Can we call all of this…The Return of Lynda Carter?”

LYNDA:  “Yes (laughing), you, you said…Lynda Carter’s comeback, and I went “pow!” (with her finger as a gun) at the television……I, I prefer to call it the return, my return to television rather than a comeback, comeback sounds like its so old or something.”

Question:  “Is this the return of Lynda?”

LYNDA:  “Yes, it absolutely is.”

Questions:   “Well, we had thought Lynda had settled into the suburbs of Washington and Potomac Maryland with her husband Robert Altman and her wonderful children and it would be we would see you occasionally and hello!”

LYNDA:  “Well, I…..I had made up my mind first of all that I did not want to work any longer, I, about six years ago decided that I wasn’t happy working, it gave me no joy, I really was not getting anything from my work, and wanted some substance in my life, which is why I married Robert Altman, who is a fabulous man, and then I got pregnant with my first child, and said, that’s it, and pulled out completely from just about everything except a few commercials. And then I really knew I wanted to get back into, into the business sooner or later, so I took the opportunity to spend time here in New York, studying, acting again, went back to the drawing board and, and have committed myself to really finding out what that is.”

Question:  “But then had another child?”

LYNDA:  “Had another child and spent three months in bed, and after you spend three months in bed (laughing) you ah, the first thing you want to do is to bolt and get out there and feel life and, you know, I really had empathy for people that, that are confined to bed.”

Question:  “Could you explain what it is you missed?”

LYNDA:  “Well, I,  I really got re-ignited by studying again, I did not have the fire, Larry, that I once had, when I first started, and studying again and really understanding what the work was about, as opposed to everything that we can get caught up in and lost in, uh the fame and the money and the deals and the celebrity, and now it’s about the work for me. Now it’s about the parts, it’s about the work, it’s about how I approach it and, I’m excited, I’m ignited, I, ah, I can’t wait for the next part.”

Question:   “Are you going to back into clubs, too?” (nightclubs) Because you had a great singing and dancing act.”

LYNDA:  “Probably. I’m right now focusing on the acting and my family, and …ah…I think that’s what I going to do for the time being and we’ll see.”

Question:  “Are you happy with “Daddy?”

LYNDA:  “ I am happy with “Daddy,” it, it…I’m a Danielle Steele fan anyway, I mean I take a lot of plane trips and I can pull out a Danielle Steele book and read it.”

Question:  “Had you read Daddy before you got the part?”

LYNDA:  “Yes, I did.”

Question:  “Did you think of yourself in when you read it…actors do that.”

LYNDA:  “No…..yes they do, I really hadn’t, ah, Doug Cramer who is the guy that discovered me and “Wonder Woman” is doing all these Danielle Steele books for televison, and I had lunch with him and he said, there’s this script I want you to read, would you do it, and I, I thought it was sort of….kismet that it would be the same guy that sort of got me started.”

Question: “Now no one would know that at the same time that this would occur, Robert Altman would have problems dealing with an investigation about a bank, in some far-off country…….now from your standpoint, now you have four things going on. You have a husband with his name on page one, you’ve got yourself on the front page of the show section, you’re both in tabloids and at the same time it looks funny, because you’re off doing what you weren’t supposed to do. How did you handle all this?”

LYNDA:  “Yeah, well first of all, it’s the man, you know I married the most remarkable human being, I mean no one knows him better than I do, and he is a man of integrity, and he is resilient and he is strong and just a fabulous guy and a wonderful Father. And I think it has really been his strength that has allowed me to, really look at this, this whole problem from a different perspective, and oh no, my world is crashing down, because I watch this guy, watched the way he handled it, and he’s so remarkable with his resiliency and his ability to really see the whole picture. Washington is a tough town, and you know as well as I do that you cannot believe what you read in the newspapers. What’s so interesting, & so terrible at the same time about this, and it makes me so angry, is that they went on for months and months about this alleged thing with Clark Clifford, this real true American hero, trying to trash him, to tear his reputation apart along with my husband’s, and then two days after they testified, the Federal Reserve board had done intensive investigation, seven man years worth of investigation, came back and corroborated everything that Clifford and Robert had said, that their bank was run one hundred percent honestly with no outside influence from BCCI whatsoever, the bank that they ran, they ran honestly, and there was no outside influence, and it did not even get TWO LINES in the Washington Post. And that makes my angry, (getting more and more upset) they trash my husband, they trash Clark Clifford, and then, then when they’re wrong, they don’t even report it. Ah man, dukes up!” (raising her fists in front of her, at the TV.)

LARRY KING LIVE, October 21, 1991  PART TWO

Question: What effect has it had (the BCCI scandal) on you…. professionally any?

LYNDA: Well, no..(laughing)..actually, I think in Hollywood, they think it’s good publicity, “oh yes, you looked adorable on television, sitting behind him,” no, I’ve had, there’s been an outpouring of support from friends, and uh..in Washington, a lot of people have asked me, well, you know, you can really see who your friends are and whom sticks by you and…it’s a tribute to my husband, ah, that we have had so much, so much positive reinforcement, our friends have stuck by us and have been true blue.

Phone call:  Have you ever considered going back to singing and bringing variety back to television?

LYNDA: Yes, I would like to sing again, right now I’m concentrating on my acting career and my return to television and then film, and, singing is really a big part of my life, and I know that I want to go back.

Larry King: Do you miss Hollywood?

LYNDA: Well, I miss the industry, I miss that, but I really like living in Washington, despite everything, yeah.

Phone call: Did you become a vegetarian to prevent animal slaughter or world hunger, or for health reasons?

LYNDA: Well, I really am not a vegetarian any longer, I have been on and off different periods of my life, my latest thing right now is bee pollen (laughing)….it’s energy producing and it’s uh, natural….I met this bee keeper when I was shooting in Vancouver…I know this sounds so strange, but I swear to you it gives me so much energy, a teaspoon a day, you cannot believe it.

Phone call:  I’d like to know if you’re ever going to do a Wonder Woman reunion?

LYNDA: Ohhhhh, yes, it would be interesting to see if I could fit into that suit again, wouldn’t it? Well, I haven’t been approached by Warner Brothers to do, there’s been talk, they tried to revive it and I don’t think the public really wanted to see anyone but me in that role, so we’ll have to see. They’d better not wait until I’m sixty!

Larry King: Well now it’s fairly common, but how many women had their own shows, when Wonder Woman was on?

LYNDA: It was Lindsay Wagner and myself in our age group, there was also Angie (Dickinson) of course, and Mary Tyler Moore and Carol Burnett, but we sort of started it all, back, way back then.

Larry King: Was it fun or camp, or both?

LYNDA: It was so much fun to do, and I have really enjoyed the last several years talking to people because it seems to be such a…they seem to have such a warm and wonderful feeling about the show.

Phone call: Are you at all concerned with animal testing done by cosmetic industries?

LYNDA: Yes, of course, Maybelline discontinued that practice many, many years, most of the time that I’ve been with them, and yes, I am concerned, I think it is inhumane, and, uh, they, they always have reasons for it, but not reasons I agree with.

Phone call:  My question to you is, when we have troubles, we need friend to count on, can you name any people in Hollywood that you’ve been able to count on through all these troubles you’ve had?

LYNDA: Well, well I hesitate in naming names anyway, uh, because my friend are my friends, and some of them are famous, and some of them aren’t, and I must say as earlier, that I’ve been overwhelmed by the support that they gave us.

THE JOAN RIVERS SHOW, June 3, 1987

Joan: How is your new husband?

LYNDA: (laughing) My new husband, well, it’s been three years now, he’s terriffic, and in Washington DC, a lot of people don’t realize that I moved to Washington about four years ago, and it’s teriffic. If you have to leave Los Angeles, Washington is, is not a bad place to live at all.

Joan: Now do you still have a place here? (California)

LYNDA: I still have a ranch here in Malibu, 18 acres here, and it’s a beautiful place, sort of a place away from the city, but I think I will probably end up selling it.

Joan: What about Washington, right smack in the heart of all that social buzz?

LYNDA: It’s great, I was a little nervous, whenever you move to a big city and make a big change in your life of any kind it always takes a little time to adjust.

Joan: A friend of mine saw you at a dinner sitting between Steve Bell and Caspar Weinberger, what do you say to them?

LYNDA: Well, he’s the secretary of defense, and I was, I am a very curious person by nature anyway, and being in this political arena is fascinating to me, and people really don’t have, uh, barriers up against me because I really don’t need anything from them. So I just chat about things I’m interested in, and I was on this dais between this fine journalist Steve Bell and Caspar Weinberger, and we were talking, laughing, and Caspar Weinberger is not known for his sense of humor, so I turned to him and this David Stockman book had just come out, and I asked him, how did he feel about the David Stockman book, not realizing that he’d been ripped to pieces in the book, so he was sort of a little taken aback by it, but we talked a little bit about it, and he turned to his dinner companion, and Steve Bell turned to me and said “that was a GREAT question!” It was not a question he could have asked as a journalist, so it was a little embarassing, because I do put my foot in my mouth occasionally.

Joan: Who else, tell me some other foot in your mouth stories, with who, did you ever slap Ronnie Reagan on the back?

LYNDA: (laughing) Well close, it’s close, I was going through a receiving line where Vice President Bush and Mrs. Bush were standing, and it was so exciting to me, a big deal, and I was in all full gown and very princess-like, all this walking through, shaking hands, “hello Mrs. Bush, (I said) hello George..oh, oh, excuse me, Mr. Vice President,” in public, cameras are snapping away, and he was so gracious, he said “no, George is fine, Lynda, that’s fine, that’s just…fine.” My husband turned white and pretended he didn’t know me.

Joan: Now, do you think this marriage is working out better with this husband not involved with you career-wise?

LYNDA: Well, I really think, I really feel that this is the first time I have been married. It’s, uh, it’s a real marriage. I think I have time doing things other than pursuing a career, which is really how I spent most of the last ten years of my life, going after a career and what am I doing next? Now I have a chance to share.

Joan: You had so much, with Wonder Woman, it’s in syndication in so many countries, and that doll all over, you must be making a fortune. What do you make from that doll? (the Mego Wonder Woman doll.)

LYNDA: (fatalisticly) I make absolutely nothing, absolutely nothing, it…I think you’re probably familiar with the problem in Hollywood, and that is they market you, and they use you. They made a mask of my face and put it on the doll, and they put my name on the first run of it, and then they took my name off and said they didn’t have to pay me any more, so, it is a matter, it is a kind of thing where you can be used so much……I don’t even make money from the reruns, it’s called creative accounting …don’t ever settle for net profits, but you know, it’s the same thing, James Garner, Jim Arness, all of us have gone through the same thing. You spend five years doing deals in writing, but there is what they call creative accounting, and it will, it will change, I… I know a very good lawyer in Washington (her husband!)

TONIGHT SHOW w/ guest hostess Diana Ross, 24 July, 1978

Diana:  “Goodness, you’ve got an incredible voice, there,” (Lynda just sang “We Are Family!”)

LYNDA:  “Thank you, the audience is just great, so easy to work with. All that energy.”

Diana:  “I haven’t seen your special, (“Lynda Carter: Celebration!”) but I heard it was incredible and it’s going to be on in September?”

LYNDA:  “Well, no it’s going to be on in the fall, we don’t have an air date yet, cause they don’t want to, they’re waiting for the right spot, and it’ll be on like…November? Yes.”(She asks her husband Ron Samuels, who is in the audience.) “My mouth is dry. Is this yours, or mine?” (picking up a mug of  a drink).

Diana:  “From everyone that I have heard….yes, it’s yours, but you can have it.”

LYNDA:  (laughing) “It’s mine, but I can have it?” (both laugh at the flub).

Diana: (laughing) “It’s mine, but you can have it, and it yours if you want it.”

LYNDA: (admiring Diana’s diamond necklace) “You have such beautiful jewelry……..Ron, can I have some just like it? Ron is my husband.”

Diana:  “Ron is her husband-manager. Is it hard to get directions from a husband manager?”

LYNDA: “Is it hard to get directions from any husband? No, they offer their directions right off the top. And managers offer their suggestions right off the top…(laughing),no…seriously speaking…

Diana:  “Yes?”

LYNDA:  “It’s terriffic…working with my husband’s really good, because I can fight with him, and he doesn’t think I’m…you know…bad or tempermental or anything like that. No, I can, he is, I trust him implicitly because he doesn’t have any ulterior motives, and he’s so good at what he does…he also manages Lindsay Wagner….he’s producing films, and I’m not even in all of them .(laughs) I’m in some of them, not all of them.”

Diana:  “I spoke to him on the phone, and he sound like he’s a fine manager, and  really…I didn’t feel that it was a husband kind of image coming, you know it was a good manager feeling.”

LYNDA:  “That’s what a lot of people have a tendency of doing, I think, with putting people in a slot or a box like that, because…h’m, he’s your manager, I see…psskk!” ( pretends to be a questioning agent.)

Diana: “Well sometimes Lynda it does not work, to have a husband as a manager….”

LYNDA:  “I know.”

Diana: “…..to work for you, I think sometimes it might be difficult. I was close to a situation like that….

LYNDA:  “Ohhh I seeeee” (acts amused).

Diana: “ …..I don’t know if it’s in the best interests to have your husband as a manager, but for you, if it works….

LYNDA: “Well, he was a manager before I met…”

Diana: “….before you met him?”

LYNDA:  “He was manager before he met me. And so he was already sort of famous in his own right, without me, so it wasn’t that I made him or he’s made me, although…..(laughing) he would probably like to think he made…..nooo, honey I’m just kidding.”

Diana:  “That’s wonderful. You were just in Europe?”

LYNDA:  “Yes, we were, I did, I just got back from Monte Carlo in fact yesterday, and I was doing a tennis tournament, celebrity tennis tournament, and ah, it was kind of neat. It was only my first tournament, and I was playing against Princess Caroline, of Monaco, and I beat her!”

Diana: “You did?”

LYNDA:  “Yes! I….had a little help, though…in fact he’s in the audience tonight….V.J. Armitraj, he’s only like number 16 in the world or something.”

Diana: “How did he help you?”

LYNDA:  “How did he help me…I just stood on the mat and closed my eyes and he was running back and forth during the whole thing.”(laughing at herself).

Diana: “You’re not allowed to beat them, you know (royalty), you have to let them win.”

LYNDA: “Yes…I was glad we left without being followed by a guillotine!”

Diana:  “I did not know you were a singer, really, you’re incredible as a singer. Have you always sang? I mean, was it one of your first loves, or …..as Wonder Woman, you don’t sing on the series, do you?”

LYNDA:  “Nooo…I…Wonder Woman would have a hard time with a microphone (laughing.) Singing is, as you know, it’s such, if you all (talking to the audience) could experience what’s it like for Diana or my self to get up in front of an audience…you feel like you’re plugged in, you feel like all this electricity, all this energy is just flowing through you and you can’t help but give it out and give it back. It’s….if we could give you just one moment of that experience…ah…I would be very grateful, very thankful, because…it’s the best.”

Diana: “Right! Do you warm up, I mean to you do vocal exercises, is there anything before you come on? That’s a strong voice.”

LYNDA:  “Yes, yes I do.”

Diana:  “Can you show us, I’ve never done any exercises, can you show us, can I learn something?”

LYNDA: “I do vocal….I stretch, I get my energy going in my body, and I always say a prayer.”

Diana:  “What do you do…no…..can you show us an exercise?”

LYNDA:  “Show you an exercise?”(surprised)  “Well, okay…..(sings) bumblebee, bumblebee, bumblebee, bumblebee, bumblebee, bumblebee, bumble-ba-bee!”

Diana: (delighted) “Ah-haaaa! That was good.”

LYNDA:  “It’s not quite the mi mi mi that used to go on.”

Diana:  “I don’t see you around at a lot of parties, I don’t go to a lot of parties, are you a private person?”

LYNDA:  “Yes, Ron and I go…hardly…anywhere, and sometimes when we do get out and about with people….ahhh…I just get…I’m very shy, Diana. I don’t feel comfortable around people I don’t know….in an environment where I don’t know what to say…I don’t…..sort of…..I don’t usually wear my contacts so everyone thinks I’m a snob because I can’t…see them. And so I always get busted and get in the trade papers….”well, she ignored everyone at the party!”……when I was sitting scared to death in the corner not being able to see anything! It’s true! And so what happens is we usually just have friends over at the house or…it’s very casual…I dress in my blue jeans, and my five, I’ve got five different shirts that I wear, and that’s it.”

Diana:  “I wonder if people around the country…I wonder if you wear your Wonder Woman in….(laughing) that’s a great outfit!”

LYNDA:  “Yeah, I know…it’s a little uncomfortable, though……I mean its only like…..armor!” (laughs)I didn’t mean it that way. Yeah….when I was in  Monaco, there was a little boy that came up to me, and he found out that I was…Wonder Woman. So he came up to me, and he tugged on my shirtsleeve….and I say Yeah? He was a cute little boy, and he looks up at these….in the south of France they’ve got this most beautiful architecture, and these huge archways, and he points up to this thing about thirty feet in the air. He looks at it, and he says “Will you jump up there?” And I said…I didn’t want to disappoint him…I said, ah, well, gee, ah…(whispers conspiratorily) not right now. And he said, “oh, ok,” and walks away. Now we’re inside, and it’s only thirty, I mean, twenty feet up, and he looks up and he says “Will you jump up THERE? And I said, “well, not today.” “Tomorrow?” “No, I…I don’t think so…I’ll don’t think I’ll do it at all.” I didn’t know what to say (looking embarrassed) and he looked at me and…he looked up there, and he went (shakes her head as if exasperated) and he walked away. He looked like, oh boy, they said you’re something special! I felt crushed.”

Diana:  “You are something special….I think you’re very very beautiful. Did you win an award for a….beauty something?”

LYNDA:  “I did, but I didn’t…I don’t know, I don’t really relate to myself at all in that way.”

Diana:  “Well I want you to know, it takes a lot of courage for me to have a girl like you on the show (laughing)”

LYNDA:  (surprised) “What are you talking about, you’re…”

Diana:  “YOU’RE GORGEOUSSSSSS!!!  I know you’ve got to leave us and catch a plane, can you sing another song for us before you go?”

LYNDA:  “No!(joking)…..well, okay.” (she sings “Sometimes When We Touch!” then leaves).

THE TONIGHT SHOW, WITH GUEST HOST JOAN RIVERS. MONDAY, 3 JUNE 1985

Joan:  “Will you please help me welcome, Lynda Carter! You look great!”

LYNDA:  “Thank you!”

Joan: “And we do look alike, ha ha.”

LYNDA: (laughing) “Thanks, I did my hair like you so we could look alike.”

Joan:  “You know why you look good, because you’re newly married, happily married?”

LYNDA:  “Yes, yes I’m very happily married to a terrific tall, dark, handsome, dashing fellow.”

Joan:  “Did you always go for tall guys? How tall are you?”

LYNDA:  “No, I didn’t always…and I would never…I shouldn’t probably say that…I prefer tall men, I have a lot of short friends, though. I’m 5’nine, but everyone thinks that I’m six foot because I wear high heels…I’ve got long legs, so I’m really only 5’nine. I was in the dressing room…I was doing a Bob Hope Show, and sitting next to me were Brooks Shields, Christie Brinkley and Cheryl Tiegs, and I looked like a dwarf next to them. They were all over six feet, and I’ve never felt quite so intimidated in my life.”

Joan: “Did you ever date any short guys in high school?”

LYNDA:  “I didn’t really date…I was really, I was really awkward when I was in high school, I was all arms and legs, and all the boys on our football team…we had the shortest football team in the city, and they were all about 5’6, and somehow I never really dated very much in high school, I was sort of an ugly duckling.”

Joan: “Where are you from?”

LYNDA:  “Arizona…Phoenix.”

Joan:  “Oh I thought you were going to say Washington because your husband, you’re living in Washington DC now.”

LYNDA:  “Yes, Washington, I live in Washington DC now.”

Joan:  “Because of your new husband.”

LYNDA: “Yes, because of Robert Altman.”

Joan:  “Do you like Washington, do you find it boring sometimes?”

LYNDA:  “Oh it’s great, it’s very different than living here in Hollywood.  I find that a lot of people there are much more interested in what’s going on inside here in Hollywood and they don’t want to talk about politics when I’m around, and what’s going on…here, and of course I want the inside scoop on the new tax bill.”

Joan:  “Do you make it up (gossip about Hollywood)?”

LYNDA:  “Do I make it up, sure.”

Joan:  “Everyone wants to know about show business.”

LYNDA:  “Yes, and also one thing about Washington that surprises me, it that here (in Hollywood) they’re avid sports fans, but Washington people are fanatics when it comes to the Redskins (football team.) The congressmen and senators wearing hog’s noses, waving red banners, Oh they just go crazy, they’re wonderful. Georgetown closes down when they win a game, and…it’s total bedlam and no one thinks about who is, who is a corporate lawyer or who’s a congressman.”

Joan:  “Does you’re husband put on the (hogs) nose?”

LYNDA:  (laughing) “No, no I’d better not tell….no, I have to say this, that there’s a hogs nose hanging over our television set…I tried it, yeah, I decided it looks pretty awful.”

Joan: “Tell me, it’s a very cute way that you met “( her husband Robert.)

LYNDA:  “See, I met my husband in Memphis, Tennessee and we were there on business just for one day, and we met at a dinner party..so I…ah…he asked for my phone number, and I was…just so…sure of myself, so cool…and I went back to California, and I just knew that he was going to call me at that point. Well, one day goes by…”Ah, did anyone call?” to my housekeeper. The next day goes by….”Ahem, did ANYONE call?” ( getting more frustrated)…”Are you sure he didn’t call???” He spent about four days of not calling me, and then I opened up the mail, and in it was a beautiful gift, gold cufflinks, and he called me ‘bout two minutes after that…and I…was….Hello!(breathless)…I was in love!”

Joan: “How soon did you get married?”

LYNDA:  “It was 18 months.”

Joan:  “So he really courted you!”

LYNDA:  “Yeah, we spent a lot of time together.”

Joan:  “What is different than your first marriage?”

LYNDA:  “I’m cooking….I’m serious!”

Joan:  “You’re COOKING?”

LYNDA:  “I know.”

Joan:  “WONDER WOMAN is cooking?”

LYNDA:  (laughing) “I must say, I’ve set off the smoke alarm quite a bit…no, I really enjoy it, I enjoy doing things that are very normal. I spent so many years in the fast track here (in Hollywood) and it’s always work work work work work, so, being able to be in Washington, and being my husbands wife, and meet new people and have interesting conversations, and just get away, it really brings a nice, fresh approach for me when I come back.”

Here Lynda sings “I’m Gonna Love You” and Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man!”

Joan:  “So your mother taught you to love singing?”

LYNDA:  “Yes, my mother taught me lots of wonderful music, a lot of blues. Instead of being taught “Mary Had A Little Lamb” I was taught “St. Louie Woman” and the age of 4. Actually I did have a doll named “St. Louie Woman” that I fell in love with.”

Joan:  “Did you mother ever sing professionally?”

LYNDA:  “No, she just always sang to me and was always playing good music on the phonograph. And she still does come up with some wonderful ideas for my act.” (Lynda’s musical nightclub shows.) ”

“SONORAN LIVING” INTERVIEW, KNXV-TV, PHOENIX  ARIZONA, 6 JUNE, 2002

Tracy Cornett:  “Welcome to “Sonoran Living” the glamorous and very talented Lynda Carter! Hi Lynda, how are you feeling this morning?”

LYNDA:   “I’m just great, I just had this wonderful surprise, ah I had this really, really cute guy come backstage and um he…I looked at him and he said, “I’m your cousin”…and he really is my cousin, from the Gomez family, Danny Gomez.”

Question: “Lynda, you’re back where you grew up, you grew up in Scottsdale, Arcadia High School?”

LYNDA:  “I did, actually it’s very cool to say we grew up in Scottsdale, but really we grew up in Phoenix. Scottsdale and Phoenix did not connect, so Arcadia High School, if you lived over a certain line, then you had to go to Scottsdale High, and if lived on that side of the line you went to Arcadia.”

Question: “Did you have a happy high school experience, were you super involved? I thought you were a singer?”

LYNDA: “I had an interesting high school experience, I actually don’t ever remember studying very much. I was working… from the time…I started working at 14 with a little freshman band that, you know, knew six chords…a garage band, but we played at high school dances, and then I started, when I was about 15, to sing with another group at the Village Inn Pizza Parlor by the campus of Arizona State. We’re talking looonnnggg time ago!”

Question: “I grew up watching you, and as a young girl, you were very empowering. Nowadays we have things like the Vagina Monologues and other thing that really empower women. But for me as a little girl growing up, watching you, it was just…ah.”

LYNDA: “Well I’m sort of thinking, God, I feel really old! I have this great story, talking about Wonder Woman, people coming up to you and stuff like that, um, there was this masseuse, and I’d been skiing all day long, I’d been skiing with a girl friend, and it was the end of the day, and I’m like totally ragged, you know, with the towl on, and you know, hat hair and no makeup, and she trudges into the room with her little table, and she looks at me, and she drops the thing, does a pose, and she says “THE GODDESS WITHIN!” Oh I loved it, I thought it was great.”

Question: “Did you realize your role, I mean, that was one of your first acting gig ever, at age 22, 24ish, something like that?”

LYNDA: “Right, ah nineteen…..(laughing) no no, it, it was about, I was about 22.”

Question: Here you became this international icon, the producers were shocked by the success because they were taking a risk by putting a brand-new person in this role.

LYNDA:  “Right, exactly, Doug Cramer, whom I’m still friends with, actually, he ah, the network did not want to cast me because I had no experience, and they were really taking a chance at that time to even use a woman as holding their own show. I mean, this was…there were no women who held an hour dramatic show…and he really went to bat, and he said “I’m not going to do it unless I have this actress.”

Question:  “Have they talked to you about possibly doing a remake?”

LYNDA:  “Yes, over a lot of years, I’ve…I don’t know, I’ve never really wanted to mess with it. Leave it where it was. I’m always disappointed in..ah..remakes.”

Question: “Lynda, who do you think would play you as far as the hot teens that are out there right now? Jennifer Lopez…”

LYNDA:  “You know, I have heard of so many different people, ah, that they’ve..and they’ve been trying to remake it for a long, long time…about 4 years ago, and about 15 years ago, yeah and about 12 years ago, but they, just…..(in a stage whisper,) haven’t been able to cast it……(rolls her eyes, looks up in the air, grinning, and in a very satisfied sing-song voice)…theeeyyy havennnn’t been able to cast itttttttt!”(laughing)

Question: “Well, we want to talk about why you’re here…first of all, you made a claim, a while back, cause we saw this on Biography, that you would not come back to the valley until you were a star.”

LYNDA: “Oh nooo! That’s not true! My family lives here. Why would I not come back?”

Question: “Well then, Biography is a liar!”

LYNDA:  “Well, I, I think that…I might have said something along the lines…I, you know wanted to come back and be a big star, or something, but not that I was never coming back…until I was successful.”

Question: “Is your family super proud? Do they still live here?”

LYNDA:  “They live here. Everyone lives here.”

Question:  “Do they still live near Steven Spielberg? I thought you kind of grew up together.”

LYNDA:   “Well, he was a few years older. Honestly truly, he was in high school when I was in grade school, but he lived down the alley and behind us. And he used to…I remember….. skinny…he looked tall to me, tall and skinny, with, um, lots of curly hair, and ah, carrying one of these super-eight cameras all around. His little sister and I would try to be in the movies, and it was a real….(laughing) we were just swatted away….get out of here, get out here, go home. I actually didn’t even know that it was him, until quite a few years later…that THAT was…”OH, THAT was Steven Spielberg?”

Question: “Tell us about this role, (“The Vagina Monologues”) were you scared to take this role?”

LYNDA:  “You know, I um, I had decided about a year ago that I really wanted to change my focus and to try to do some things that were a little out of the box. I’ve been doing the same types of roles for a long, long time, and I always play a heroine, or a mother that saves the anorexic child, or like that, and so last year I did a comedy that did…ended up doing pretty well in the theatres, “Super Troopers” it was called, uh, and then I got a call, or I got a suggestion that I do the “Vagina Monologues” and I hadn’t seen it, so I got the book, and I’m reading it…(looks shocked) oh, My God, I can’t do this….I can’t do this, you know! Well….maybe I can. The script is quite different from the book, in that it’s consolidated and it’s much more crisp, and I don’t have to do every monologue. Some of them, I’d, you know, some of them I’m glad the other actresses are doing.”

Question:  “Now you have two co-hosts, right?”

LYNDA: “Right, they travel with the show, they’re on tour, and they’ve been on tour for five months, and uh, different cities, and uh every week they put a new, either a local celebrity, so next year you guys can put you’re…hat in the ring. And it’s fun.”

Question: “Is it easier and easier to say every night that word?” (vagina)

LYNDA:  “Well I already did this in the Washington area last February, so I’m used to it, but I tell all my family, my father who’s almost 80, is coming tonight. My mother was there last night, and I could hear her laughing in the background…she’s got this great laugh. Anyway, so after the first five minutes, and you’ve heard the word vagina, it…..you know, and in the beginning they say, first of all, just the word vagina, it is a TOTALLY unsexy word.”

Question: “The poor men out there are just dying that Lynda Carter’s saying this, over and over again.”

LYNDA:  (laughing) “Oh I say other things, too!”

Question:  “Do a lot of men come, or is it a strictly a girl’s night?”

LYNDA:  “You know, last night, in the front row, off to the side, there were FOUR GUYS SITTING THERE! AND THEY   WERE   HOWLING ! I think they kinda slumped in their seats a couple of times, but it’s not male bashing at all. A lot of women drag their husbands and loved ones right along with them, I mean.”

Question:  “We’ve got this game, it’s called “Go Goddess” and we’re going to ask questions of Lynda, kind of heart, spiritual questions of Lynda.”

LYNDA:  “Oooooh, I hope I pass.”

Question:  “We want to get to these questions…this is good one. Venus could put a smile on anyone’s face, she was the queen of pleasure and the bringer of joy. Picture yourself as a modern day Venus. What brings you pleasure, Lynda Carter?”

LYNDA:  (big, beautiful smile) “My children! I have a fourteen year-old son, James and an eleven year-old daughter, Jessica. And they are the most incredible children, I, they are just such great human beings. Ah, you know, they’re going through the throes of adolescence, but they’re just outstanding people.”

Question: “Is it hard to be away from them when you travel?”

LYNDA:  “Well this time it is because I’m gone…I usually don’t allow myself to be away from them for very long, and it was just supposed to be a week, so I was going to go home, but then I got a movie that I’m going to do in California for another two weeks, and so it’s going to be as lot longer.”

Question: “A made-for-tv movie, a big-screen movie?”

LYNDA: “No, a big-screen movie (BLOODHEAD) and they’re going to start shooting it in 29 Palms, hot, by Palm Springs.”

Question: “OK, To be balanced blue, learn how to sing and communicate love and understanding. I should have more compassion for? Are you compassionate?”

LYNDA:  “I, I discovered that, um, compassion is, it is quite a different thing than feeling like you can fix it, because you can’t fix it. And very often, when I am trying to help someone, sometime they resent it, or they expect it, and I’m not doing them any good. You know, I just, I hate the dark, I hate the dark side so much that I tend to want to just go right away and make it better, or help someone see the bright side, or….you know, and I have really worked hard recently to learn how to not fix, and to just sit there, whether it’s with a girl friend or my child, sit there with their dark feeling with them.”

Question: “And just listen and feel it with them?”

LYNDA:  “Yeah…girlfriends do that…..nooo…what’d he say?…Ohhhhh!” (laughing)

Question: “Here’s one: all change is for the best, and every new experience it just a test. My most recent test was?”

LYNDA: “Oh. The Vagina Monologues…haha. (laughing) No, no no no no. I…it isn’t…my most, my most recent…hmmm…that’s a…gosh! ( can’t think of an answer)”

Question: Well, let me throw this at you, what about criticism? How do you handle criticism?

LYNDA:  “Not well!  I have worked on…I…am a creation in motion. I am constantly…trying to…not just improve myself but have an understanding, a depth of understanding of who I really am. I feel that in doing that, I can really…be there more for my children, and have a richer fuller life. So I have faced that…ah, I get defensive, immediately, you know, if someone’s critical of me (sits up straight, looking offended and surprised) I….or I try to win them back. You know, talk about disgusting insecurity, I mean, that is like the…height!”

LYNDA:  “Not well!  I have worked on…I…am a creation in motion. I am constantly…trying to…not just improve myself but have an understanding, a depth of understanding of who I really am. I feel that in doing that, I can really…be there more for my children, and have a richer fuller life. So I have faced that…ah, I get defensive, immediately, you know, if someone’s critical of me (sits up straight, looking offended and surprised) I….or I try to win them back. You know, talk about disgusting insecurity, I mean, that is like the…height!”

Question: “Disgusting insecurity, that’s a good description. Then you have some disgusting insecurities?”

LYNDA:  “I’m….working on it (laughing.) And isn’t it an…amazing…amazing thing that most attractive women are so insecure…and I think it’s because that the guys we were around were so insecure about us…that we…learned about it and it felt like rejection!”

All transcriptions by MARK MEADER.

All articles integrating this site are copyright © 1999-Present by Wonderland - The Ultimate Wonder Woman Site. LYNDA CARTER IN HER OWN WORDS is copyright © 2001 by Mark Meader for Wonderland - The Ultimate Wonder Woman Site. All pictures are © 1976-77 of their respective proprietors, photographers and agencies. All rights reserved. Any graphics, pictures, articles or any other material contained within this site may be copied for personal use only and may not be used or distributed within any other web page without expressly written permission.