Amanda Peterson’s Mom Counters Mug Shots With Fond Memories, Insists Drugs Didn’t Kill Her
The face in a series of recently unearthed mug shots looks nothing like the Amanda Peterson we remember from Can’t Buy Me Love. They tell a story of a woman whose life was mired in hardship.
Peterson, 43, died on Friday of unknown causes. Her body was found in her Colorado home, where she lived alone, on Sunday. An autopsy and toxicology report will determine her cause of death.
While those results are pending, her mom, Sylvia, is trying to counter the impression that her daughter’s mug shots are giving to the public. And she’s grasping at the possible causes for her sudden death — from sleep apnea to mold — but refused to consider that drugs may have played a role.
“This was not, in any way, a drug thing,” she told Entertainment Weekly, noting that she had struggled with drug use when she was young, but had been sober for years.
The mug shots, obtained by People, hint at that troubled past, which included several arrests.
Peterson was arrested in 2000, 2003, and 2005. That year, from September to December, she spent three months in jail. By 2010, she was arrested again and charged with third-degree assault after she got into a spat, while evidently intoxicated, with another woman in a bar.
The heartbreaking downfall and troubled past of Amanda Peterson before her death at age 43 http://t.co/jfl5VM5Z8B pic.twitter.com/deOtNUagO5
— People (@people) July 8, 2015
Her daughter, now 8 and living with her father, and then-boyfriend were with her at the time.
That boyfriend defended her, telling police that she was on medicine that she shouldn’t have mixed with alcohol. He implied that she was bipolar and had ADD; her mother said that she suffered from depression.
Then in 2012, Amanda was arrested for DUI and possession of narcotic equipment; that was her last brush with the law, and there the mug shots end.
The mug shots that narrate these arrests show a woman much different than the pretty, vibrant young actress who captured Patrick Dempsey’s heart in the 1987 classic. Even compared to a photo shoot she gave in 2012, she looks much different. The New York Daily News described Amanda as having “sunken-in cheeks” in one photo; she sports black eyes in another.
Peterson retired from Hollywood shortly after the film that made her famous. After her 1982 debut in Annie, she had 10 more appearances in film and TV, the last of them in 1994, according to IMDB.
Which leaves many people wondering what happened to an actress many have lauded for her natural beauty, personality, and kindness. Photographer Ryan Hartsock, who shot those last photos of Peterson, said “she had the greatest smile. I know it brightened her day when she got all the emails and fan mail from everybody. Really any time that we were together she was a kindhearted, great person.”
Meanwhile, Sylvia is trying to explain Amanda’s sudden death and recalling their final moments together. She last saw her daughter on Wednesday and had planned dinner with her on Friday; when she didn’t return her calls, she assumed Amanda was mad at her.
Those last moments together, at least, were good ones.
“She was in bed, and she’d had a wonderful day, and we were planning on a dinner the next day, so it was just a very, very big surprise. She was so great. She had a cute sense of humor and a love of history – just a very, very cute person.”
[Photos Courtesy Twitter]
