A Singing Wonder at 56

Wonder Woman has arrived in New York City. Except this time, instead of fighting crime with her bullet deflecting bracelets and golden lasso, she is showing us her more sensitive side. She has returned to headline an hour-long cabaret show. Many might not know, but before slipping into the hot pants and boots to become Wonder Woman, Lynda Carter was a singer. She left home at 17 to join her band on the road. Her mother didn’t try to stand in the way, later insisting, as Carter recalled in a recent interview, “You know it’s useless to get in Lynda’s way when she’s determined to do something.”

After the Wonder Woman series ended in the late nineteen seventies, Carter took up singing and enjoyed long stints performing in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, as well as on many television specials. She gave up the business 20 years ago, yet she couldn’t get the music out of her head. She recalls, “I couldn’t imagine doing anything else ... ’cause I got no place else to go.” She returned to the music scene in 2005 appearing as Mama Morton in the London production of Chicago. Now after two decades, she has returned to her original love: the live stage show. She is headlining an intimate cabaret show at Feinstein’s at Loews Regency Hotel full of cabaret standards and favorite medleys from her past network specials. The show began this past May with a sold out run in San Francisco.

Lynda Carter returns to the stage in top form. Although no longer an Amazon with super powers, Carter still exudes a regal beauty and presence on stage. Her ability to connect with the audience is especially notable. Throughout the hour long show, she is able to hold on to her celebrity aura while remaining relatable and genuine to the audience. She is able to tackle songs made famous by Billie Holiday, James Taylor, and Willie Nelson and make them her own so that as a listener, one simply forgets that the song was not originally intended to be performed by Lynda Carter. As one audience member astutely stated, “You either have it or you don’t. Lynda Carter obviously has it—that “X” factor.”

Perhaps more captivating than her performance, however, are the interludes between each song, when she fascinates the audience with her tales of working with James Taylor and Willie Nelson. Taylor, she recalls, taught her about the ‘fakeness’ of an encore. Just go off stage, touch the wall, turn around, and come back on stage, he told her. Carter’s charm and jovial personality come through, as she is able to poke fun at herself and her fame throughout the show. She is proud of her Wonder Woman roots and does not shy away from them, although she does refuse to reenact the twirling transformation by which she used to change into the superhero.

The audience is filled with Carter’s super-fans—men and women (mostly men) who follow her shows around the country and still have her vinyl record and figurines. In an age where celebrities seem increasingly less eager to interact with fans, Carter is truly appreciative and gracious. She explains, “It’s a scary thing to put your ass on the line. It’s a scary thing to make changes as far as listening to that voice inside your head.” She understands that as a 56 year old performer, she owes much of her enduring success in the entertainment business to her fans.

She was a movie star in an age where women rarely were given their own television shows. She is a huge supporter of women in the media and all related fields of work and study. As for her advice to the many aspiring singers and actors at Barnard College and Columbia University, Lynda Carter insists upon study and discipline: “You will never make it unless you know what you are doing—be a student of what it is you want to do.” She continues, “The yardstick is you—that’s how you learn to think for yourself. I have to watch myself.”