Actress and star of Happy Days
Born: October 18, 1960;
Died: April 22, 2017
ERIN Moran, who has died aged 56, was an actress who became well-known for playing Joanie Cunningham on the nostalgic sitcom Happy Days. Moran was the mischievous sister of Richie, the all American teenager played by Ron Howard and a friend of the Fonz, played by Henry Winkler.
When she started on the show, which was made in the 1970s and 80s but was set in the 1950s, Moran was just 13 years old. As she grew up, she started a relationship with Chachi, a younger cousin of the Fonz played by Scott Baio, and in 1982 they were given their own spin-off Joanie Loves Chachi - one of many spin-offs from Happy Days including Mork and Mindy starring Robin Williams.
Joanie Loves Chachi was not a success however. It told the story of the young couple trying to make a life for themselves in Chicago where they started a rock band, but the show was panned and was cancelled after just 17 episodes.
Happy Days also represented the professional peak for Moran. She had been something of a child star before joining the sit-com - her mother signed her up with an agent when she was five years old and she appeared in a number of television shows including The Don Rickles Show. However, she struggled to find work after the end of Happy Days and had personal problems and issues with alcohol. Tellingly, the title of the autobiography she was working on was Happy Days, Depressing Nights.
Born Erin Marie Moran in Burbank, California, Moran grew up in North Hollywood where her father was a finance manager. After signing with an agent, she appeared in a television commercial when she was five and went on to play supporting roles in a number of television shows in the 1960s and early 70s.
She joined the cast of Happy Days in 1974 and was with the show for the following ten years. Debuting at a time of nostalgia for the seemingly innocent 1950s, the sitcom was set in Milwaukee and soon became a hit. Ron Howard and Henry Winkler were the show's biggest stars, but Moran also became popular.
For Moran, the cast became like a family for her. Speaking in 2009, she said: "What happened with all of us was like we were this family. It was so surreal with all the cast members. They were my family."
Asked in 1981, while she was still appearing in Happy Days, what she would like to do after the show, she spoke about a career in feature films or on the stage, but it was not to be. She appeared in guest roles in shows such as The Love Boat, Murder, She Wrote, The Waltons and Diagnosis Murder, but she struggled to find the kind of success she had on Happy Days. When she was in the news, it was often for numerous personal and financial struggles; she was reportedly homeless at times.
In 2011 Moran, along with Marion Ross who played Joanie's mother and former Happy Days actors Anson Williams and Donnie Most, sued CBS, saying they were owed money for merchandising related to the show. The lawsuit was settled the following year.
After the end of Happy Days, Moran she had sometimes struggled to grow up in the limelight and had faced pressure from the producers of the show to wear more revealing outfits. “They suddenly wanted me to lose weight and become this sexy thing,” she said.
By the late 1980s, she had suffered from depression and had decided to give her acting career a rest. “I wanted time off to reassess my life and career,” she said. “I had to ask myself, ‘Do I really want to keep doing this, or do I want to sit back and take it easy for five years, 10 years?”
Moran had been living with her second husband, Steve Fleischmann in Indiana.
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