Erin’s Way: Despite List of Credits, Actress Keeps Her Feet on Ground

Erin Chase has done television commercials for fast food, breakfast food and dog food. She had a starring role in the canceled NBC series “Aaron’s Way” and will be the voice of Charlie Brown in a cartoon series.

A busy schedule for any actor. But those are the credits of a fresh-faced 14-year-old from Rolling Hills Estates who began her career at the age of 6 months modeling pink pajamas in a Buffums advertisement.

TV Role

More recently, Erin has worn an Amish apron and prayer cap as the 11-year-old daughter of Aaron Miller (Merlin Olsen) in “Aaron’s Way,” the story of a Pennsylvania Dutch farm family that moves to fast-paced California.

Though the series was dropped from the fall lineup, Erin’s disappointment is tempered by the job as the voice of Charlie Brown, several commercials for Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. and being named the spokeswoman for Clean Teens USA, a Modesto group against alcohol, drugs and teen-age sex.

Through it all, Erin remains a normal child, said her mother.

“She has to feed the dog, make her bed, feed the horses, rake the manure--just like anybody else. If you cut through it all, she’s pretty normal,” Joann Chase said in a recent interview.

The freshman at Rolling Hills High School is an infielder on a girls’ softball team, takes guitar lessons, attends church with her family and frets about spending five hours a night on homework.

Erin, who is the fifth of six children, has followed her older brothers Earl and Eric into acting. Earl had a brief career in television commercials. Eric began auditioning after a plastic surgeon told his mother it might improve his self-esteem; he had been disfigured after running through a sliding-glass door. He appeared in commercials, on numerous television shows and was a regular as Christopher Pruitt in the 1968-70 series “Here Come the Brides.” The brothers, who are now in their 20s, left acting and have other careers.

“So when I came along in 1973, I guess I was just born into it,” Erin said recently.

Attended Auditions

That’s more than a figure of speech, according to her agent, Helen Garrett.

“Basically, I’ve known Erin since before she was born, if that’s possible,” said Garrett, who met Chase when both had boys going to auditions together.

Chase was pregnant with her fifth child when Garrett called--this time as an agent. She had work for Eric. Garrett “told me when I had that baby to bring it down. She could always use an infant,” Chase said.

Soon after she was born, Erin began doing commercials, and she kept at it for about eight years.

Then, the demands on her time outweighed the attractions.

“For five years I didn’t do anything,” she said in the low, raspy voice that won her the Charlie Brown contract. “I was sick of it. . . . I wanted to be a kid. I wanted to play and run around. I wanted to ride my horse.”

Garrett estimates that a child auditions for 30 jobs to get one.

“It’s hard because it’s boring,” Erin said of the drive to and from auditions. “It takes from 45 minutes to an hour and a half one way.”

Chase had also tired of the routine.

‘Total Commitment’

“It isn’t easy,” Chase says of being a child actor’s mother. “It’s running and running and running. Everyone suffers. You’re not home sometimes until 7 or 8 o’clock at night, so you can’t get meals fixed and the house doesn’t always look like it should.”

Said Garrett: “It’s a total commitment, and very few parents are willing to do that.”

For a child to remain active, parents must finance necessities like wardrobe, acting lessons, union dues and promotional photographs, which must be taken at least every year. The cost can run into several thousand dollars.

Despite these drawbacks, Chase said, “it’s been a good experience all the way around. I think it teaches a child to be strong, to accept rejection. Kids think life is a bowl of cherries and then they get out in life and the pits hit them in the face. These kids have to learn early in life that it isn’t fair.”

There also are the financial benefits. Erin’s career has given birth to a bank account that will pay for her college education.

Her first year at Rolling Hills High School was a challenge because the “Aaron’s Way” filming schedule kept her off the campus for the first semester. She was working at the Lorimar Telepictures lot daily from June, 1987, to January, 1988.

Sacrifices for Job

During the fall semester, her school load was light; she was enrolled in an independent study program and had a studio tutor. When she began attending class on campus in January, she found it difficult both scholastically and socially. The subjects were harder and the amount of homework increased. Worse, because she hadn’t had time to nurture friendships, she didn’t know many other students.

“I was accepted partly because I was in show business,” she said. “Now, I think they like me for me, instead of for ‘Aaron’s Way.’ When you do this kind of thing, you have to give up friends. It takes a lot of time. (Auditions) have priority.”

Although Erin loves acting, she does not expect to make it a career. “As an adult, it’s not such a stable job to have,” she said, and her agent agrees.

“It’s hard for children to make the (acting) transition to an adult,” said Garrett, whose agency represents about 500 children. “I think school is very important. They have to have something else.”

Whatever Erin pursues--she’s leaning toward law or psychiatry--she’ll likely tackle it with the confidence that made her the first girl--after a series of 12 boys--to be the voice of Charlie Brown on television.

Convinced her voice had the right boyish sound, she overcame objections from Garrett that she was better suited to the role of Lucy. Garrett gave her permission to phone the casting director, and within minutes of that conversation, Garrett was being told to have the young actress’s voice professionally taped.

“They heard her and fell in love with her,” Garrett said. “She’s an excellent little actress. Every place I send her, they’re astounded by her reading.”

Olsen, who met Erin while filming the “Aaron’s Way” pilot in Australia more than a year ago, calls her “unique. There’s no question that she’s pugnacious in her approach as an actress.”

Erin personally responds to every fan letter, and now she adds a plea that her fans ask NBC to keep “Aaron’s Way” on the air.

“It’s such a good show, you know,” Erin said. “When I found out it was canceled, I cried for three hours and missed my guitar lesson.”

“I was upset because I felt like I would never see (the cast) again, and they’re all so nice,” she said.