When producers of the hit ’70s TV series Wonder Woman needed to figure out just how Diana Prince, played by Lynda Carter, would transform into the first female DC Comics superhero, they were perplexed.
“They couldn’t put her in a phone booth – that’s what Superman did,” Carter tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “They wanted to put me on a lazy Susan and I thought that was ridiculous, so I said, ‘Why not a dancer’s pirouette?’ And that was it. That’s how Wonder Woman’s transformational spin was created.”
Now, nearly five decades later, the actress who first brought the Amazon princess to life, wearing star-spangled armor and bulletproof bracelets, is having to figure out her transformation once again. This time after the loss of her husband of 37 years, Robert Altman, who died in February of myelofibrosis, a rare blood cancer.
“The next part of my life is I want to learn who I am,” says the 70-year-old star. “It’s totally frightening. I don’t know who I am without Robert.”
“It still gets me,” she adds, dabbing her eyes between a few tears. “I just can’t believe I’ve lost him.”