Can’t Buy Me Love is one of my favorite movies from the ’80s, and Cindy Mancini, played by Amanda Peterson, was one of my favorite characters from the movie that was released in 1987. Peterson also starred as Sunny Sisk in the 1986 miniseries A Year In The Life, which landed her the starring role as Sisk in the the TV series of the same name. A Year in the Life ran for one season in 1987-1988 before being canceled.
In 1986, she was cast alongside Patrick Dempsey in the teen comedy Boy Rents Girl. The film was shot on location in Tucson, AZ, and the title was later changed to Can’t Buy Me Love after the producers secured the rights to the Beatles’ 1964 song of the same name. Can’t Buy Me Love was released in 1987 and became a surprise hit of the summer, and both Dempsey and Peterson became ’80s teen idols.
In this interview from 1987, Peterson talks about the film as well as what her real life is like in Greeley, CO now that she’s famous and “popular”. Sadly, Peterson passed away in 2015 of an accidental drug overdose. A coroner’s report determined that Peterson died of an accidental drug overdose. According to reports, she had undergone a hysterectomy shortly before her death, and she was prescribed a drug called Gabapentin for pain management. It was reported that she was also taking morphine that she had obtained from a friend a week before she died, and the coroner’s report concluded a “morphine effect” triggered respiratory failure that led to her death. She was only 43 years old when she died on July 3, 2015.
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