WONDERLAND • The Ultimate Wonder Woman Site

A former Miss U.S.A. and stunning star of 'Wonder Woman' and 'Bobbie Jo and the outlaw' says her beauty has branded her a "knucklehead."

Lynda Carter, the 24-year-old brown-haired knockout who represented America in the 1973 Miss World pageant, says: "Sure, it's fun to look beautiful, to go someplace and know the heads are turning. Trouble is, people always assume that because you're pretty you haven't got anything in your head."

And Lynda, willowy with soft, large eyes that run to blue, green and gray, says she's got plenty in HER head.

She is a song writer, recording artist, budding screenwriter and now, actress. And, she says, pretty darn mad at everyone who thinks she didn't have to work hard and fight for her successes.

"I've come a way since the time I worked for $70-a day to wear a swimsuit and banner signing autographs in supermarkets, " she says.

"And being a beauty queen helped a lot less than people think. Doors close in this industry if you've won a beauty contest. It's alright for men to be talented and good looking. But not a woman!

"Sometimes I want to open the window and yell to the world: 'I'm a person, I'm not dumb. There's a real person here that has nothing to do with what I look like. ' "

Still, if good looks are a drawback, Lynda Carter has made the most of them.

It took a number of bit parts before the cameras to land Lynda the part as the immortal Amazon, golden girdle and all, in ABC's 'Wonder Woman'. And although that led to other roles -- including American International's lead in 'Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw' -- she still counts 'Wonder Woman' as the most fun.

"People could take the show any way they liked," says Lynda with a grin. "When Charles Mutton created the comic book he wanted to give little girls their own version of Superman, Batman and The Phanthom. Someone they could identify with.

"That's how I saw Wonder Woman too. There aren't many shows for and about women on television. And I tried to make her a real person."

Real or not, Wonder Woman was able to leap cars in a single bound, drove an invisible plane, and did things with a rope that would have made Roy Racers fall off his horse.

And when she fought the villains it made Bruce Lee look clumsy.

Did being a one woman army mean L ynda Carter was really a hardened women's libber at heart?

"No, I'm a feminist through and through, " says the 5'8 ", 126 lb beauty who played the part, stunts and all.

"I know it's a man's world - that it's harder for women to get high paying jobs and recognition.

"I know men who can deal with other men on a business level can't do the same with a woman ... especially a beautiful woman. But I'm trying hard to be a good actress, anyway.

"Besides, I love being a woman. I love the time I spend over my body, my hair, my nails....

"I like being taken to dinner - chairs pulled out, doors opened. I don't see why I should put a sack over my head just because some people seem to think beauty and brains don't mix. "

In Lynda Carter however, the combination seems to work very well. But no matter how talented she is, the striking actress with the face and figure to win a beauty crown knows the role she craves most may never be offered her.

"I'd like to play a plain girl looking at the world through ordinary eyes, " Lynda says. "But when casting directors see me they don't seem to take the idea seriously."