Latest ‘Lagoon’ Star Lisa Pelikan Makes Impressive First Impressions

Lisa Pelikan, who stars in the upcoming sequel “Return to the Blue Lagoon,” makes quite a first impression.

At her audition for the Juilliard School of Drama--done on a dare, with zilch previous acting experience--she was accepted on the spot and offered a full scholarship.

She had the same effect on a fellow actor, husband Bruce Davison of “Longtime Companion.” They met at a party, where Pelikan prepared a few sentences in her mind to compliment him on a performance she had found “brilliant.” (Her interest was purely professional, she claims.)

She only got as far as “Hi, I’m Lisa,” when he grabbed her hands and said, “I know ,” she retells with delight, in her delicate, slightly breathy voice. That was Wednesday. Thursday, they met for coffee. Saturday morning, he showed up on her doorstep bearing strawberries, croissants, ham, roses--and a proposal of marriage.

After four weeks, she accepted. They married five months later and just celebrated their fifth anniversary. “He’s the love of my life,” she says.

She returns to singlehood in the “Blue Lagoon” sequel opening Aug. 2 and in a TV show for USA Network, “Into the Badlands,” airing Wednesday and July 28 and Aug. 3.

In “Return to the Blue Lagoon,” she plays a widowed mother with a baby girl, shipwrecked on the same island where the first movie with Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins left off--with their now-orphaned son. (So the two kids aren’t related, get it?)

Pelikan filmed in Fiji for three months. Her husband spent two weeks with her on the island, which looks like paradise in the movie but actually subjected cast and crew members to downpours every day, welts from insect bites, heatstrokes and an encounter with a stingray.

Not as romantic as that Saturday breakfast.