Singer Carter still a wonder woman
Lynda Carter peers at the ultrasleek stereo in her hotel room, trying to find the right button that will get it to accept her CD.
“Now, where would Play be?” she asks.
Carter played Wonder Woman on television, someone who stopped bullets with her bracelets. On this day, she’s more human – more alter ego Diana Prince – stumped by an unfamiliar stereo.
“OK!” she says with delight as, finally, the squeal of a saxophone signals the beginning of Sam Cooke’s torch song “You Send Me.”
The voice that emerges, though, isn’t Cooke’s. It’s Carter’s.
Long before she donned her famous star-spangled one-piece, Carter was a singer. She’s getting back to it now with a new CD and a cabaret tour, proving that the 57-year-old is still something of a wonder woman.
“She’s really a very incredibly talented singer,” says drummer Paul Leim, the leader of her band who has worked with Carter since her “Wonder Woman” days.
“Hopefully, everybody will get a chance to experience the real Lynda Carter instead of the actress from the cartoon,” Leim says.
The album contains covers of standards such as “Cry Me a River,” “Blues in the Night” and “Summertime,” as well as playful torch songs such as “Million Dollar Secret.”
Listeners might be startled at the strength of her voice and the soulful coloring of her songs, backed by top-notch studio musicians.
“I don’t think I work for surprise, but I think I’m surprising,” she says.
Besides being a powerful charity fundraiser, Carter turns out to be a news junkie, able to talk about presidential line-item vetoes or Tom Daschle with ease.
She’ll be appearing on Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard and then at Lincoln Center in New York. In April, there’s a fundraiser in Washington and a one-night stand in Modesto, Calif. And, in June, she’ll be at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Carter, who grew up in Phoenix, got her first professional singing job at 14. At 17, she was on the road, playing the Catskills, clubs in the Reno-Tahoe area, and made her debut at the Sahara Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas in a band called The Garfin Gathering.
She won the Miss World-USA title in 1972 and four years later landed the iconic role of Wonder Woman, which she played until 1979. Carter returned to singing and performing in 2005 in a London performance of “Chicago,” and a year later was part of the musical’s 10th anniversary show on Broadway.
She dipped her toe in cabaret in 2007, playing small venues in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Despite the new work, she knows that she’ll never fully escape the legacy of Wonder Woman. Perhaps only when someone new steps into her old suit.
“It needs to be done again,” she says. “I think they should. I’m the first one to pass that baton and I hope it makes a bizzilion dollars.”
The birthday bunch
Talk-show host Ralph Emery is 76. Singer Dean Torrence of Jan and Dean is 69. Actor Chuck Norris is 69. Actress Shannon Tweed is 52. Actress Sharon Stone is 51. Actress Jasmine Guy is 47. Bassist Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam is 46. Actor Jon Hamm is 38. Country singer Daryle Singletary is 38. Singer Robin Thicke is 32. Singer Carrie Underwood is 26.