Prince Rodgers Nelson will celebrate his 56th birthday this Saturday. And although he’s been nothing less than a cultural icon and musical genius since before I was even born, back in ’86 he was just a twentysomething with a record smashing soundtrack, “Purple Rain,” trying to convince the rest of the world that he was still a smalltown son of Minnesota at heart. At 28 years old, in banana crisp yellow and a fresh to death press and curl, Prince covered PEOPLE Magazine, doe eyes and arched brows next to the headline: “On A Blind Date With Prince: Would you let this man date your daughter?”
The story chronicles the frenzy his Royal Badness incited in Sheridan, Wyo. while promoting his second film, Under the Cherry Moon. Twenty year old Lisa Barber truly became the talk of the town, when she won a date with Prince and a private screening of the Purple Rain follow up with her closest friends. While residents assembled in pre-Beygency form to swarm for tickets, other residents could care less unless Prince was up for getting his hands dirty: “I’m going to paint a fence. If Prince wants to help me, that’s fine.”
The throwback cover story details what undoubtedly one of Barber’s most memorable dates, in which the 20 year old shares that Prince was a perfect gentleman, occasionally playing with her hair during the flick. He may not have stolen a kiss, but he clearly walked away with diamonds and pearls.
“I’ll have lots of memories, but I know I’ll probably never see him again,” she said of her beau, who gave her earrings and a gold necklace as keepsakes. “I’ll never take them off,” she vowed. Looking back, she says the only flaw in a perfect evening involved a misunderstanding over some costume jewelry Prince had impulsively asked to borrow. “He was a dream date,” says Lisa, “even if he didn’t give me back my pearls.”
Read the full PEOPLE cover story from 1986 here.
Win A Date With Prince Rogers Nelson: That Time Prince Took A Fan On A Date In 1986 was originally published on theurbandaily.com
