Erin Moran never would have made it on a sitcom in this era of instant critics on social media. She was cute but she was ordinary. She didn’t have a 22-inch waist or DD boobs. Unless she could write her own show and work nude, like Lena Dunham, a girl like Erin Moran wouldn’t have been able to stay afloat in the Kardashian sea. Â It’s simply a sad fact.Â
But it’s precisely why girls my age – a few years younger than Erin herself – loved her on Happy Days. She was attainable. I could imagine us becoming best friends. Boys could picture her saying yes to going steady. Fonzie loved her and if Fonzie loved her, Fonzie could love me. Her character grew from a whiny kid to a lovestruck teen who found her soulmate in a guy she’d known most of her life. Joanie loved Chachi and we could all see why Chachi loved her back.
Erin Moran grew up on television and by the time she left Happy Days for Joanie Loves Chachi, she was under pressure from producers and television executives to lose weight and dress with more sex appeal. The spin-off sitcom lasted only 17 dreadful episodes, making Moran a has-been at twenty-two. She found brief roles here and there on The Love Boat and other series, but they were one-offs and certainly not enough to pay the bills. She appears to have stopped working around 2011, and in 2012 she and her hard-partying husband were booted out of their Indiana trailer park and have since reportedly floated from motel to motel. She joined her former Happy Days castmates in a recent lawsuit for back royalties. They expected millions but won just $65,000 each. For a drug addict, that’s a few good months.Â
It appears Erin Moran died of an overdose but as of this writing, that’s not confirmed. She was 56. It’s almost like a childhood friend has died. We loved Joanie, too.Â
UPDATE: The coroner’s office in Indiana says it appears Erin Moran died from complications of advanced (stage four) cancer, and that no illegal drugs were found with her. Did she become a drug addict to ease the pain of an illness she couldn’t afford to treat? A sad story just got sadder.
What a beautiful post, Lisa. You captured everything about this loss, so perfectly. It’s all so sad.
It just seems so wrong that she suffered when everybody of a certain age knew who she was. I read a story about the group of former child stars who look out for each other. They reached out to her and she rebuffed them for whatever reasons. Ultimately, the choice was hers.