WONDERLAND • The Ultimate Wonder Woman Site

	Lynda Carter may be one of the most beautiful women in the world, but is she one of the happiest? If she isn't, then she's certainly one of the busiest-and she wouldn't have it any other way.

	Lynda Carter, not content with playing Wonder Woman on her imaginative CBS-TV series, hopes to attain wonder woman status on her own once she parts with that ridiculous costume.

	Lynda, 25, wants it all: to excel as an actress, a recording star, a nightclub performer and a song writer. She is encouraged by her husband and manager, Ron Samuels, who also has handled the careers of TV-angel Jaclyn Smith and of "Bionic Woman" Lindsay Wagner.

	While Smith and Wagner seem content to concentrate on acting careers, Carter, anticipating the inevitable eclipse of Wonder Woman, already has branched out into other fields of show business. She makes her Las Vegas nightclub debut at Caesars Palace this summer and recently cut her first album, Lynda Carter Portrait (Epic Records), which shows off an impressive, well-trained alto voice.
Wonder Woman, Lynda's first professional attempt at acting, may be a mere stepping stone to a multiple career for the Arizona-born beauty contest winner. At least that's how Lynda feels about it.

She is aware that the comic strip element of the show )united her chances to show off her dramatic talents. Lindsay Wagner is similarly handicapped in the fantasy "Bionic Woman" role. But Lindsay did win an Emmy award last year.

"I think that being convincing in a .part like mine takes a lot of acting," says Lynda. "I've never stopped trying to stay true to the character, hoping to make her believable. I doubt that anyone but me could play that part and pull it off.

"I'm very proud of the progress I've made with the character and with my own performance. Everything has improved week by week. At the end of the season there was a bittersweet feeling about taking off the costume. On the one hand, it had been a long, hard year, and I was ready for a vacation from the role. On the other hand, I didn't know whether Wonder Woman would be back next year. [Note: It will be; Friday nights on CBS.] But even if the show had been canceled, it wouldn't have been the end of the world for me. It would have been a beginning.

"All television shoes are temporary," she adds. "Every show has a last season. I hope to make a natural transition from Wonder Woman to music and to other acting projects.

"I see no conflict in combining music and acting careers. Years ago, Ginger Rogers sang, danced and acted. Doris Day, too. And look at John Travolta! He's is perfect example of a contemporary person who is doing it all-albums, movies and a vies. Now it's time for a contemporary woman to do the same."

Lynda began singing professionally at age 15, when she worked weekends at a pizza hangout in Tempe, Arizona. After completing high school she sang with two groups and toured with them for almost two years.

"I quit singing after that," she says. "I'd learned as much as I could, and I was unhappy traveling all the time."

In 1973, away from music, Lynda won the Miss U.S.A. contest, then went on to become Miss World U.S.A. Later she made the pilot for Wonder Woman, then the seriesand now she has come full circle, to music again.

"Ron is the one who got me back into singing," she says. "I played a tape for him when we first met, and he couldn't believe it was my voice. He wanted to know why I wasn't singing. His creative instincts are really something. He has a gift for seeing things on a long-range basis.

"More than a year ago, around the time we got married, Ron arranged for me to co-host five segments of The Mike Douglas Show so chat I could present myself as a singer. He was right. Both the Caesars Palace booking and the record album happened because of those appearances."

Leaving the safety of a television series to try out a new career takes courage. But Lynda is self-confident. "I feel," she says, "that if you have the ability to do several different things, then you should try to do them all. At the moment I'm concentrating on music, including songwriting, but I also want to try television movies and feature films."

Lynda Carter recently was voted the most beautiful woman in the world by the International Academy of Beauty in London. Most observers would agree that her eyes, so clear and so penetrating, are her best feature. In bright light they turn a silvery blue. When you look into her eyes, you get a sense of her confidence and her promise. If she fulfills that promise, she indeed may become a real-life wonder woman.