Berlin singer rejected famous roles, became sensation

Terri Nunn has turned down more starring roles than other entertainers get offered in a lifetime. Nunn didn’t win the Princess Leia role she auditioned for, but she rejected the TV show “Dallas” plus the lead female part in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.”

She has no regrets about shelving her acting career. She wanted to be a singer.

That she was, landing in the group Berlin, singing the Oscar-winning “Take My Breath Away” for 1986’s “Top Gun,” and performing the new wave classics “The Metro,” “Sex (I’m a …),” “Masquerade” and “No More Words.”

Berlin performs this Saturday at KKLZ-FM 96.3’s “Junefest” at Sunset Station with Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, the Romantics and John Waite ($34-$100).

Let’s look at Nunn’s strange path one step at a time, as she recalled it for us from her home in Santa Rosa Valley, Calif.

“Star Wars” — On the audition, she didn’t think Harrison Ford liked her. The script confused everybody, because no one had ever seen a “Star Wars” movie yet.

“‘R2D2 grabbed the fader, and the Death Star will find us,’” she said, joking about the script and laughed.

Harrison Ford seemed bored with her and “had no interest in me whatsoever,” she said.

If Nunn, 53, had become Princess Leia, she’d be a film legend starring in even more “Star Wars” movies soon, correct?

“I would be a very rich person now, but I wouldn’t be happy,” because she would have abandoned her music dream, she said.

“Indiana Jones”— But “Star Wars” creator George Lucas recommended her to Steven Spielberg, who offered Nunn the lead female role in Ford’s other franchise, 1984’s “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.” Nunn said no. The role went to Kate Capshaw, who married Spielberg, had five more kids, and pulled back from her acting career.

“He offered me the lead in that. But that was right when Berlin was signed, and Geffen (Records) wanted us to go out on a tour,” she said.

“Dallas”— Nunn did star in the 1978 disco movie, “Thank God It’s Friday,” and she guested in “Lou Grant” and other TV shows. So she knew what she was passing up, later, with “Indiana Jones” and “Dallas” (1978-1991).

“The acting lifestyle wasn’t for me,” she said. “It’s 18-hour days, and constantly having to find another job because the job ends, and not knowing when I’m going to get another job, and ‘How long does my money have to last?’ and ‘Is anything substantial going to happen where I can call this a living and feel secure in this?’

“But music fits me like a glove. It’s nighttime. I don’t have to get up early. I’m in control of my work and my output. It’s fun. And music is one of the best reasons to live, and I get to do it. It was a no-brainer for me.”

After the Dallas rejection, her agent and manager dropped her, thinking she was nuts. But her mother always believed in her.

“She was the only one who said, ‘I think if you want to try this music thing, you’ll regret it if you don’t try. I can’t tell you you’re going to make it.”

Berlin — Nunn had only the energy to dream and create, but few things are more powerful than that.

“I had nothin’ and I was 18. I had nothing to lose,” Nunn said. “So I started looking for a band. A year later, I met John” Crawford, the creator of Berlin.

Nunn eventually sang “Take My Breath Away” in “Top Gun,” a song that won the Oscar for best song.

Nunn wanted to make more movie music, but she screwed that up in an MTV interview, saying she didn’t like “Top Gun” because in the end, “they want to kill the Russians, and I’m so tired of Americans saying that we want to kill the Russians.”

She never heard from “Top Gun’s” producer-of-silly-movies, Jerry Bruckheimer, ever again. That was the end of her singing in the movies. That Katherine Heigl moment is the one thing she does regret, she said with another laugh.

“I completely alienated the producer who hired me to do that song,” she said. “I didn’t want to be in movies again, but I definitely wanted to make more music for movies.”

Contact Doug Elfman at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman. Find him on Twitter: @VegasAnonymous