Speaking to 'Coronet', Lynda Carter made the observation, "Television reaches so many people! I was in Cleveland (Ohio) recently (in 1977) for a personal appearance. As cold as it was back there, the fans were out in force. It was absolute pandemonium. One little boy fainted and I had to scream at the police to keep him from being trampled to death! It was a chance for me to discover what an enormous responsibility it is to be seen by the American public every week. TV, is a very powerful medium - for good or bad."
As Wonder Woman, Lynda Carter recognized, "Nobody realizes how difficult it is to play that role. I challenge any actress in Hollywood to try it - any of them. The line between reality and caricature or between the two girls, Diana and Wonder Woman, is a thin one. It's not easy to work with scripts that suggest cartoons rather than real people the audience can care about. It's difficult - and it's also lots of fun!" Lynda also told 'Teen Stars Today', "It's tough to go anywhere now. Just the other day (in 1980) I was in the grocery store and I was surrounded by kids as if it was an announced public appearance!"
"This may sound strange to you, but I speak to God every day. He told me to go ahead with the series because it could prove to be a valuable experience in many ways, but he warned me that I would be misunderstood in the role of Wonder Woman. God talks to me everyday. He always has. I suppose it all sounds very serious and sober and heavy, but the truth is that the spiritual side of your nature holds more fun and beauty and light than you can imagine.
"It doesn't drag you down - it uplifts you! In my work, I hope to act as a catalyst for other people to find what I've found. I have this gift - when somebody needs advice, I am able to say the right thing - but you see it's not really me that's talking! I hear the words coming out of my mouth, yet I don't remember what I said afterward. It's not clairvoyance, but a truly spiritual thing."
On reflection, "I am like the character because I created the character. At least the television version of the character as people know her now (in 1980). That has to be part of me. I think that any person that carries a show like I do and that has that kind of a character becomes that person. I mean, I'm sure it's hard for anyone to think of Wonder Woman and not think of me in it.
"Her personality over the three-and-a-half or 4 years (1976-1979) that I've done the show has really developed in that I've put more and more and more of my own real life personality into the character and into her lines, everything she says and she does. Of course, I'm not Wonder Woman. I enjoy playing the character, but I think I'm probably more like Diana Prince, her alter ego. I think there's probably a Wonder Woman in every woman, you know. It's kind of a neat fantasy to live out since you could do all the things she does."
In the episode 'The Richest Man In The World' first went on air in February 1979, Jeremy Slate played the richest man in the western hemisphere. Written by Jackson Gillis and Anne Collins and directed by Don MacDougall, Carmen Zapata played the prime minister of a make-believe nation Obera. She had agreed to buy 'Missy' - the Missile Systems Scrambler to protect her country against the nuclear-armed nations surrounded Obera. Missy could deprogram the guidance system of any ARM (anti-radiation missile) within a radius of 500 miles.
Barry Miller played a runaway orphan delinquent named Barney who lived in a shack. In one scene, Marshall Henshaw, who surrounded himself with avaricious executive types, told Barney, "Hang on kid, you're about to see what power and money are all about." Henshaw later discovered his assistant, Dunfield and his friend and confidant Lucy DeWitt were planning to steal Missy to sell to a black market buyer before flying off to Switzerland together. In the end, Wonder Woman foiled Dunfield and Lucy's plan and Steve Trevor, Jr. told Henshaw Missy would be shipped to Europe to its owner.
Ron Samuels told 'Money' in 1980, "On her first season as Wonder Woman, Lynda was paid $3,500 an episode (on ABC specials and mini-series). By the time she did her last season (on CBS regular series), I had renegotiated her contract up to more than 10 times that - over $1 million a year. That was a record for a woman in a TV series. And during the 5 years (1975-1979) the show was on the air, it barely broke into the Top 30. The show needed her more than she needed it."
In an interview in 1979, Lynda Carter said of the series continuing, "I don't know. I kind of am leaving that up to the Lord. I'm just leaving that up to what my life is really supposed to be about. I feel that I'll be led to do one thing or another and I certainly don't want to disregard Wonder Woman. But I've been doing it for a long time already. I am ready to move on. But you never know if the next year (1979-1980) you'll get picked up, you know. There's always, with every series, a big if. So when that ends then that ends, and I'll just go on."
Speaking to 'Christian Life' in 1979, Lynda Carter made known, "I was brought up in the Catholic church. But catechism didn't mean very much to me. There were 3 of us children, and we usually played hooky. We'd wave goodby to our parents at the front door of the church, then walk straight through to the back. But somehow you learned that there is only one way to be saved, as the Bible puts it, and that way is through Jesus Christ.
"We all look at things according to our different backgrounds. And the Lord uses each of us in different ways at different times. God used my sister Pam (Cole) as a vessel to lead me into a deeper relationship with Jesus through the Holy Spirit. The power of the Holy Spirit in a Christian's life is what makes the big difference between being a nominal Christian and an effective one. Jesus left us the Holy Spirit when he went back to Heaven. 'I will send you the Comforter,' He said.
"The Holy Spirit turns all the attention to the Lord. For me, it meant a cleansing, an inner purging. And this continues through my prayer language. It is so fulfilling. It brings my communication with the Lord so much closer. Before I was filled with the Holy Spirit, I didn't know He could reveal things from the Bible. But He does. He makes truth more clear."
As Wonder Woman, "I was concerned about this ... and about the certain amount of idolatry connected with the program. But the Lord showed me that He would use the focus on me to turn the focus back to Him. For example, I would never have been interviewed so many times, if it hadn't been for my role in 'Wonder Woman'. And each time, I try to witness ... Wonder Woman is just a fictional character, of course. There is no person who is immortal in just that way. We are immortal in spirit and will someday get a new body."
