BEFORE LYNDA CARTER: WHO’S AFRAID OF DIANA PRINCE?

Following the splashy premiere of 20th Century Fox TV’s Batman on ABC-TV, many Hollywood producers began hunting for comic book vehicles which might be converted to weekly programs. However, a degree of uncertainty was apparent at the top echelon of studios also, with some biding their time on comic books for series, and a few flatly closing the door on them, in the belief that Batman would not develop a trend. 

 

At Fox, which with Bill Dozier’s Greenway Productions initiated the most talked about show of the time, production chief William Self commissioned Dozier to commence negotiations for other comics properties such as Wonder Woman and Dick Tracy. ABC-TV quickly optioned Wonder Woman for a potential series for and a television pilot was made. To keep the budget down, however, a full 25-minute episode was not filmed. Instead, only a five-minute preview of what the series would look like was produced… with Ellie Wood Walker in the lead.

 

Walker grew up in Kentucky, attended Maysville High School, played clarinet in the MHS band and was crowned prom queen her senior year in 1953. Ironically, this would not be the last time we would see her in a tiara. After graduating, Walker left Maysville to attend Northwestern University in Chicago. She went on to leap tall dreams in a single bound and landed a career in show business as one of the June Taylor dancers.

 

In 1962, she married actor, Robert Walker, Jr., who is perhaps best remembered for his role as Charles Evans in the original Star Trek series episode, “Charlie X.”

 

Along with her work as a dancer, Walker acted in summer stock productions and would eventually land roles in films such as the cult classics, Targets and Easy Rider.

 

Meanwhile, beneath stately Wayne Manor, Batman producer William Dozier decided it was time to bring another comic book hero to the small screen. This looks like a job for… Ellie Wood Walker! And history was in the making. Even though the pilot was never televised, she won the coveted role of the world’s first Wonder Woman for the screen!

 

“At the time, I thought it was an audition, but we ended up filming immediately,” Walker recalled. “My step-father-in-law, David Selznick, promoted me, having seen me in an off-Broadway show. He was a fan and friend of William Dozier, the producer of Wonder Woman.” On a casting trivia note: the scene in which Wonder Woman admires herself in the mirror is not a mirror. A double was used for that shot: Linda Harrison, also dressed as Wonder Woman, who would soon go on to play the iconic role of Nova in Planet of the Apes (1968).

 

Filming of the five-minute TV pilot took place at Greenway Studios in 1967. Unlike the sophisticated camp of the successful Batman series, the tone of the Wonder Woman pilot was downright goofy. Despite the brief film, a 14-page story was written by Mad magazine writers Stan Hart and Larry Siegel, to ensure the proposed series would be different from other television programs. Stanley Ralph Ross then wrote a 45-page teleplay, “Who’s Afraid of Diana Prince?” Had executives at ABC-TV given a green light, this teleplay would have become a two-part adventure to serve as the premiere episodes of the weekly series.

 

A second attempt to bring Wonder Woman to television was through an animation studio, Filmation, where executives considered making an animated series based on Wonder Woman. They licensed the rights in 1968 but, sadly, the only thing to come of it was an appearance by Wonder Woman – voiced by Jane Webb – in a 1972 episode of the animated series, The Brady Kids. 

 

Proving the third time was the charm, an animated version of Wonder Woman finally made it in a regular television series as a founding member of Super Friends, in 1973, produced by Hanna-Barbera. Shannon Farnon voiced the female superhero not just in this incarnation, but all other animated renditions from this point until 1983. Farnon got her television break (uncredited) in an episode of Burke’s Law in 1965, followed by roles as a stewardess, a nurse, an island girl, and a neighbor girl on such programs as My Favorite Martian, I Dream of Jeannie, and Bonanza.  

 

A second live-action pilot, simply called Wonder Woman, was filmed in late 1973 and televised as a made-for-TV movie in March of 1974. Actress and tennis pro Cathy Lee Crosby played the title role. The movie served as a proposed pilot but executives at ABC-TV would not agree to a weekly series. The movie does contain a pop-cultural oddity in that it’s based partly on the brief five-year period of the comic book when Diana Prince temporarily lost her super powers, as well as her classic costume, and she was re-imagined as a non-super-powered, mod-dressing Emma Peel-esque adventurer. This pilot is also partly a precursor of the direction that the later TV series would eventually take during seasons two and three: Diana Prince being revamped into a James Bond-like ace operative of a top-secret spy organization.

 

A year and a half after the Cathy Lee Crosby movie aired on television, ABC-TV televised another made-for-TV movie, aptly titled The New Original Wonder Woman. While the title might appear an oxymoron, the movie lived up to the title with a new rendition… based on the original concept. After a dogfight with a Nazi plane, U.S. Air Force Steve Trevor crash lands on an uncharted island in the Bermuda Triangle. Paradise Island is inhabited only by women, and their existence has been kept a secret for thousands of years. Learning of the Nazi threat to humanity, the Amazon princess, Diana, is chosen to accompany Trevor back to the United States to battle the Third Reich. Garbed in a skimpy red, white & blue costume and armed with a magic lasso that forces anyone within its grasp to tell the truth, Diana uses her powers as Wonder Woman to battle the forces of evil. Lynda Carter played the role and this time the pilot movie sold and the resulting series would ultimately bring Wonder Woman to the small screen for three consecutive seasons.