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I remember her as the teenage daughter "Sunny", from the NBC family drama "A Year in the Life" (back in the 1980s)-
it only ran for one season, but I thought it was a really good show (with a very talented cast). Sorry to hear this.
I didn't realize that she died in July, it was just trending on facebook yesterday so I thought she had just died. Sad to hear and I pulled up a recent photo shoot that she did - did not look like her at all and you can tell she was living hard.
I came across Can't Buy Me Love on tv earlier this year, I had seen it several times before,of course, but I decided to Google Amanda Peterson to find out what had actually happened to her. I had known she had passed and was vaguely familiar with her situation. Well , I ended up going down the proverbial rabbit hole researching this girl's life. From the few interviews out there on the net, she seemed like a very down to earth likeable girl with the rare combination of stunning natural beauty and real talent. It's sad what addiction eventually did to her health but from what I could tell, she was doing her best to better her situation and was doing fairly well in regards to her recovery her last 2+ years of life.
You never know what to believe on the internet, so a lot that I read about her life after Hollywood I try to take with a grain of salt. I do know this, there were several instances of people claiming they knew her back in her hometown of Greeley and Fort Collins, CO and most. If not all, gave a positive impression of her as far as the kind of person she was...kind hearted, friendly, fun. I would have loved to have met her, even interviewed her about her life, with no preconceptions or jaded in any way. There's more info out there that I found, particularly The Doctors episode her family did talking about a terrible trauma she endured at the age of 15 from a much older man in Hollywood. It got me to wondering if it was only one trauma that happened to her...and not several as someone who supposedly knew her in recovery suggested. Either way, it's tragic.
One thing I'll leave with is...I collected as many of her movies and watched as many of her TV performances as I could find (there's really not a ton out there)..most outside of Can't Buy Me Love weren't that good. Most were forgettable low budget films or TV movies...however. her performance in each one was solid and transcended the weak material, and the only reason to watch it. Such a shame that talent got squashed by an industry that tends to destroy the lives of its young stars. Such a shame that she wasn't given the effective help and protection she needed. Thats an indictment on the industry and not her family. I dont pretend to know what they went through with her. I know this though: Amanda Peterson deserved much better than what she got in my opinion.
I think it was her good looks that got her casted in the first place, and perhaps a certain amount of luck and her determination but everyone knows, looks and even talent don't mean Jack in Hollywood, you need connections and a certain personality to get somewhere. Look at all the not-so-easy on the eye new wave of young actors. Most are hardly even that good but every single one of those that seemingly popped out of nowhere and appearing big movies is connected to someone powerful. Guaranteed!
Nowadays, becoming a big movie star seems like s a fixed fight, for sure.
She was just another pretty girl with a decent personality that couldn't handle or make it in Hollywood for those reasons. She was stunning in the 80s but I also did a nostalgic Googling some years back after seeing CBML again and yes, she had health problems, drugs problems and even some legal issues. She clearly had it rough in the last couple of decades so I feel sad for her but at least she should be at peace now.
I never knew a thing about this actress...only saw her in CBML, which I'd watch here & there throughout the years & I liked...no more, no less. I happened to find out long ago that she had died yrs ago.
This actress reminds me of the similar, but even-shorter-by-almost-a-decade life of actress Dana Plato. She passed at 34.
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