Post by Graveyardbride on Apr 28, 2017 18:36:43 GMT -5
Happy Days Star Likely Died of Cancer
INDIANAPOLIS – Erin Moran, 56, best known as Joanie Cunningham on Happy Days, died April 22 at 2860 Bishop Gate Dr., N.E., her mobile home in the Berkshire Pointe Trailer Park community in New Salisbury, Indiana. According to the medical examiner, she most likely died of stage 4 cancer. Toxicology reports are pending. Investigating officers found no illicit drugs or paraphernalia inside the home.
In a letter, her husband, Steve Fleischmann, who married Moran November 23, 1993, and works in the garden department at Wal-Mart, said his wife’s throat cancer caught them both off guard. “She was feeling fine on our anniversary, 11-23-2016,” he wrote. But four or five days later, he recalled, “Erin woke up and had about a dime-size blood stain on her pillowcase”; she thought she had bitten her tongue. Sadly, a few days later, there was more blood and after a month or two, they realized the bleeding was from her tonsils, not her tongue. “I thought it was tonsillitis,” Fleischmann continued. But following a biopsy, doctors diagnosed squamous cell carcinoma. The pair immediately went into action, ready for the battle ahead and neither realized how bad it would become.
“Five days a week radiation and chemo only on Thursdays. We did that the whole time,” her husband explained. “It got so bad so fast. By the middle of February, Erin could no longer speak or eat or drink.” But even this did not get her down. “She was still happy, she was active, she texted people on her phone all day.” Then, things took a turn for the worse. “On the 21st she was having trouble breathing. She woke up on the 22nd, she was not 100 percent.” That day, Fleischmann went to the store for some Kleenex and when he returned, the two lay in bed and watched TV. “I laid down next to her, held her right hand in my left. I fell asleep, woke up about a hour later still holding her hand and she was gone, she was just gone.”
According to Fleischmann, neither had understood just how invasive her disease was. “Norton Cancer Institute never said how bad it was,” he insisted. Instead, he heard it from the coroner. “It had spread to her spleen, she had a lot of fluid in her lungs and part of her brain was infected,” he continued. “The coroner said even if she was in the hospital being pumped full of antibiotics, she still would not of made it. He said it was the best that she was with me and went in her sleep.”
“So that’s it,” he concluded, then explained why he had to let the world know the details of the former star’s death. “The press has been relentless,” he complained. “They knock on the door constantly.” He said he had been forced to call police to get the reporters to leave him in peace.
Fleischmann claimed he and Moran met April 22, 1992, and had planned on going to Thunder Over Louisville to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their meeting. Instead, that was the day she died.
For several years, there have been questions about Erin Moran’s life in southern Indiana, a tapestry woven by tabloid reports, court filings and comments by those who claimed to have crossed paths with the former child star as she moved from place to place in Harrison County. Public records and Indianapolis Star archives reveal that Moran and Fleischmann, her second husband, arrived in Indiana in 2011. Public records indicate the couple owned a number of properties in California, but after losing their California home to foreclosure in 2010, ABC News reported that a representative for Moran confirmed the pair moved into a trailer park with Fleischmann’s sick mother in Indiana. In September 2012, The Huffington Post reported the pair had been kicked out of the trailer because of their party lifestyle. “Erin was going out to bars and coming home at all hours of the night, sometimes with her rowdy bar friends, and Steve’s mom just couldn’t take it anymore,” one source claimed. The Star archives indicate that after Moran was evicted from the trailer, she was discovered living in a Holiday Inn Express in Corydon, about 130 miles south of Indianapolis. Apparently, she was experiencing extreme financial difficulties and on the verge of being homeless. Photos of Moran in the parking lot of the hotel were a hot topic when shared online.
There were also reports of Moran’s quickly spending her portion from a settlement she and three Happy Days co-stars received in 2012 in a breach-of-contract lawsuit against CBS. According to The Huffington Post, the lawsuit originally asked for $10 million, but the final settlement was reportedly $65,000 per person and future royalties.
Since her sighting in Corydon, reports of Moran’s activities have been hard to come by and her Internet Movie Database (IMDb) page indicates she has not appeared in any movies or TV shows since 2010.
Born October 18, 1960, in Burbank, Calif., Moran landed her first big role on the children’s adventure show Daktari when she was 8-years-old, and made her film debut opposite Debbie Reynolds in How Sweet It Is. She also made guest appearances on My Three Sons, Family Affair and other shows. In 1974 at the age of 13, Moran was already a veteran actress when she was cast as Joanie, the kid sister of Ron Howard’s Richie Cunningham in Happy Days. She would later appear with Scott Baio in the Happy Days spinoff Joanie Loves Chachi. She made several television appearances in later years and played a supporting rôle in Not Another B Movie in 2010.
Sources: Harrison County Sheriff’s Dept., Corydon, Indiana; Robert King and Justin L. Mack, The Indianapolis Star, April 23 & 26, 2017; Laura Collins, The Daily Mail, April 24, 2017; and Varvara Budetti, Liftable, April 27, 2017.