Death of A Cheerleader

When Miramount High School cheerleader Kirsten Costas ran across the street from her front yard in Orinda, California in June 1984 having been fatally stabbed by her schoolmate Bernadette Protti and seeking help from her neighbor she probably had no idea that this review would be written. The way it happened was this: Randall Sullivan of ROLLING STONE Magazine wrote a moving article about the case (focusing largely on Bernadette Protti's dramatic confession to the police) that appeared in print about a year after the murder had occurred and was published with the title "Death of a Cheerleader". The story got such attention that Sullivan was hired to write a screenplay for a made-for-t.v. movie after Protti was paroled, depicting the events fictitiously. It was first aired on NBC as A FRIEND TO DIE FOR, but has also been aired on cable television, both under its original title and under the title of the article that inspired it. In the film, Tori Spelling loosely por- trays Costas as snobby Stacy Lockwood; Kellie Martin loosely portrays Protti as Angela Delveccio and Orinda is replaced with the fictional town of Santa Mira, California. The murder is depicted in the opening scene and the action then reverts to the life of Delveccio over the course of about a year. Although she firsts tries to cover up what she did, the depth and sincerity of the remorse that she eventually expresses are very moving. This film is worth watching several times.