Lisa Macdowell: Last News

Lisa Lisa portrayed her own mother in her recent Lifetime biopic “Can You Feel the Beat: The Lisa Lisa Story.”But she almost made an even splashier acting turn as Eddie Murphy’s love interest — who also just so happened to be named Lisa — in the 1988 classic “Coming to America.”“That was crazy,” Lisa Velez, 59, told The Post about almost getting her big-screen close-up three years after breaking out with 1985’s “I Wonder If I Take You Home,” her debut single with Cult Jam.“We were hanging out, Eddie and I, back in the day with Mike Tyson. I remember when he wanted to do a rom-comer, he wanted to test it out [to see if there was any chemistry].”Lisa Lisa apparently passed the test.“Later on I was sent a script, and they offered me that part, which was amazing,” she said of the role of Queens, New York resident Lisa McDowell, who is courted by Murphy’s Prince Akeem from the fictional African country of Zamunda in the beloved romantic comedy.But it was never meant to be for Lisa Lisa to be the future queen of Zamunda.“I was married then, and I showed my then husband [John Yulfo] the script, and he did not want me to do that,” she said.