A Friend to Die For

A Friend to Die For
Genre Crime
Drama
Based on "Death of a Cheerleader" by Randall Sullivan
Directed by William A. Graham
Starring Kellie Martin
Tori Spelling
Valerie Harper
Marley Shelton
Theme music composer Chris Boardman
Original language(s) English
Production
Producer(s) NBC
Editor(s) Lance Luckey
Cinematography Robert Steadman
Running time 87 minutes
Production company(s) Steve White Productions
Distributor NBC
Release
Original network NBC
Original release
  • September 26, 1994 (1994-09-26)

A Friend to Die For (also known as Death of a Cheerleader in the UK and during Lifetime television airings) is a 1994 American TV movie directed by William A. Graham. Written by Dan Bronson,[1] the film is based on Randall Sullivan's Rolling Stone magazine article concerning the real-life murder of a high school girl by her jealous classmate. Kirsten Costas, a fifteen-year-old cheerleader at Miramonte High School, was killed by less popular classmate Bernadette Protti in 1984.[2] The film was the highest-rated TV movie of 1994.

Plot

Angela Delvecchio (Kellie Martin) is a shy high school sophomore who aspires to be popular, beautiful and perfect in everything. She performs well academically in school, attends Mass regularly, and sets high goals for herself. She idolizes Stacy Lockwood (Tori Spelling), who is the most popular girl at school, as well as a cheerleader. One of the reasons why Angela admires Stacy is because one of Angela's goals is to become a cheerleader. When Angela is accepted into the "Larks," the school's popular clique, she tries to forge a friendship with the rich, snobbish and self-centered Stacy, who rejects her.

Angela then further suffers being rejected for a coveted position on the yearbook staff and in an audition for the cheerleading squad, leaving her humiliated and feeling like a failure. Still determined to be friends with Stacy, she calls Stacy's mother and anonymously invites her to a party under the guise of there being a special dinner for the Larks. Once Stacy gets in the car with Angela, she reveals that the "dinner" story was a lie she told Stacy's mother so she would be allowed to meet Angela.

Infuriated, Stacy demands to be taken home. Angela tries to explain how much she admires Stacy and wants to be like her, but Stacy is less than sympathetic. Unmoved, she calls Angela "pathetic" and exits the car, stating that everyone in school will now laugh at Angela. Stacy then runs to a nearby house, where she asks to use the telephone, explaining that the friend she was with had 'gotten a little weird,' and manages to get a ride home. Angela follows the car back to Stacy's home, and out of fear that Stacy will spread rumors about her, Angela stabs Stacy multiple times and leaves her for dead.

Angela avoids capture in the weeks following the incident. Although Angela is interviewed by the police, she is not named as a suspect. Angela, along with all of the Larks, attends Stacy's Funeral Mass. Most of the students blame one of their classmates, Monica, for Stacy's murder. At first, no one suspects Angela because she is seemingly too nice to commit a crime. Furthermore, Jamie Hall Angelas former best friend and one of Stacy's friends tells Angela that no one really liked Stacy, but that they were only afraid of her.

As her junior year begins, Angela becomes more involved with the community, taking up such activities as peer counseling and candy striping. Overwhelmed by Stacy's murder, one of the Larks brings up the idea of disbanding. Determined not to let this happen, Angela argues that they should remain active, noting that the group was not only important to Stacy, but also to the various community activities in which they take part. This idea not only saves the Larks, but also wins Angela the position of secretary/treasurer.

In the meantime, a harassment campaign is waged against Monica until she finally leaves the school. At this point, authorities resume their investigation and begin re-interviewing possible suspects, including Angela. With the authorities slowly closing in on her, she becomes more and more consumed by her guilt, until she finally confesses to her priest and then to her parents in a letter.

Devastated by the arrest, Jamie, who had gone to St. Joseph's Catholic School with Angela prior to high school, confesses to their priest to having left her in a ski lodge alone during a ski trip the year before, all because she did not have the courage to stand up to Stacy. The high school's principal, Ed Saxe, declared Angela a 'sick kid' and that there is no problem with materialism. As the trial begins, the Prosecutor argues that Angela should be charged with first-degree murder as there was evidence of premeditation. Angela's lawyer claims it was second-degree murder.

The judge agrees with the defense, after listening to Angela's taped confession. Stating that the tape was just circumstantial evidence and that the prosecution failed to prove the crime to be premeditated. Angela is then sentenced to confinement until the age of 25. Back at church, the priest gives a homily on the community's responsibility for the death of Stacy, stating that the unrealistic high expectations and pressures to be "perfect" contributed to Angela's actions. As the movie ends, Jamie writes a letter to Angela that she quit the Larks (having left when she realized how mean they were to Angela) and that she plans to leave Santa Mira High School and go back to her former school, St. Joseph's.

Cast

DVD

On March 25, 2002 the film was released on Region 2 DVD as Death of a Cheerleader.

True story

The film was based on a true story. On June 23, 1984, in Orinda, California, Bernadette Protti murdered her high school classmate Kirsten Costas. Protti had been jealous of Costas, who was the daughter of affluent parents and very popular at Miramonte High School. Kirsten had been a member of the yearbook committee and a cheerleader. However, Bernadette was not accepted by the yearbook committee and tried out for cheerleading, but was not picked. Kirsten, who was chosen to be a cheerleader, saw Bernadette as a wannabe and didn't take her seriously.

On June 23, 1984, Costas was lured with a phony invitation to a dinner for the Bob-o-Links, a sorority-like group at school.[3] According to Protti's later testimony, she had planned to take Costas to the party to befriend her, but Costas got angry when she was told that there was no dinner for the new "Bobbies". The girls quarreled, and Costas fled to the home of Alex and Mary Jane Arnold, living nearby, telling them that her friend had gone "weird". When Costas could not reach her parents by telephone, Alex Arnold drove her home, noticing that a Pinto–the Protti's family car–was following them. At the Costas home, Arnold, sitting in his car, saw Protti attack Costas. He thought that he was seeing a fist-fight but, in fact, Protti stabbed Costas five times with a kitchen knife and fled. The Costas' neighbors called an ambulance, but Kirsten was mortally wounded and died at a nearby hospital.

It took the police almost six months to find Costas' killer. After Protti passed a lie detector test, her alibi went unverified. After attempting to confirm Protti's alibi and rereading her lie detector test, the police knew that the girl had lied. After speaking with an FBI agent, Protti wrote her mother a letter in which she made a full confession. Protti claimed to have found the kitchen knife by chance, and her elder sister, Gina, testified in court that she used to have that knife in her car to cut vegetables. The Costas did not believe Protti's story – they claimed that nobody would use an 18-inch-long (460 mm) knife to slice tomatoes and that Protti, casually dressed on that evening, never intended to take Kirsten to a party, but had planned to murder her. Protti was sentenced to a maximum of nine years, but was released seven years later on parole.

The Costas family left Orinda and moved to Hawaii. Bernadette Protti was released from prison in 1992 at the age of 23, left California and changed her name in Oklahoma to Jeanette Butler.[3] Costas' parents vehemently opposed Protti's release.

In popular culture

References

  1. ↑ Spelling, Tori (2008). Stori Telling. Simon Spotlight Entertainment. p. 50. ISBN 1-4169-5073-7.
  2. ↑ Girl, 16, Convicted in Classmate's Slaying Teen-ager Feared Victim `Was Going to Tell People I Was Weird'. Los Angeles Times, March 14, 1985
  3. ↑ http://www.oscn.net/applications/oscn/GetCaseInformation.asp?submitted=true&viewtype=caseGeneral&casemasterID=105313&db=Cleveland

External links

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