Remember When Patrick Dempsey Was a Nerd in Can’t Buy Me Love

Decades before he was making the rounds (and pulses race) at Seattle Grace hospital on Grey’s Anatomy, Patrick Dempsey was busy mowing lawns in Can’t Buy Me Love.

Taking its title from a Beatles song of the same title, the 1987 rom-com starred Dempsey as Ronald Miller, a high school nerd so desperate to be cool that he offers popular girl Cindy Mancini—played by the late Amanda Peterson—money to pose as his girlfriend. Yes, as hard as it is to believe, McDreamy actually had to pay to get a date in the 1980s.

While it didn’t become a smash hit like some of its fellow teen comedy cohorts in that era, Can’t Buy Me Love—which ultimately grossing just $34 million at the box office—did serve as Dempsey’s breakout movie role, with the 56-year-old later going on to become a go-to rom-com leading man after Grey’s made its debut in 2005.