From left: Garry Marshall, Tom Bosley, Marion Ross, Erin Moran, Henry Winkler, and Anson Williams of Happy Days pose together in 2001. Credit:E.J. Flynn "On April 22, 2017 at approximately 4.07pm, the Harrison County Sheriffs Department received a 911 call that referenced an unresponsive female," the Harrison County Sheriffs Department said in a statement. "Upon the arrival of first responders, it was determined that Erin Marie Moran Fleischmann was deceased and an autopsy is pending." Many of her co-stars paid tribute to her as the news of her death began to spread. "Such sad sad news. RIP Erin. I'll always choose to remember you on our show making scenes better, getting laughs and lighting up tv screens," tweeted Ron Howard, who played her brother Richie Cunningham on the iconic series.

Erin Moran suffered a huge fall from grace after playing Joanie Cunningham. Credit:Matt Sayles "OH Erin...now you will finally have the peace you wanted so badly here on earth. Rest In It serenely now...too soon," tweeted Henry Winkler, who starred as The Fonz. Don Most, best known as Ralph Malph on the show, said in a statement, "I am so incredibly sad to hear about Erin. She was a wonderful, sweet, caring, talented woman. As I write this I can't really comprehend this right now. A very painful loss. It gives me some comfort to know that she's with Tom, Al, Pat and Garry. Rest In Peace, sweet Erin." Anson Williams, who played Potsie, said, "Erin was a person who made everyone around her feel better. She truly cared about others first, a true angel. I will miss her so much, but know that she is in God's hands. RIP sweet angel." In the time leading up to her death, Moran was going through marital troubles and told to leave the trailer by her mother-in-law, who was tired of her "hard-partying ways", reported RadarOnline.com.

She had already lost her Californian house to foreclosure and was reportedly living on a dwindling sum of money from her lawsuit against CBS. Moran was 14 years old when she signed on to play Ron Howard's sister and eventually Scott Baio's love interest on Happy Days, which aired from 1974 to 1983. According to Variety, Moran and three of her Happy Days co-stars – Williams (Potsie), Marion Ross (Richie's mother Marion), Most (Ralph) – and the widow of Tom Bosley filed a $US10 million ($13 million) lawsuit against CBS, claiming they never received merchandise royalties owed under their contracts. The 2012 case was later settled out of court. Winkler and Howard were never part of the lawsuit. "What happened with all of us was like we were this family," Moran said in a 2009 interview.

"It was so surreal with all the cast members...They were my family, get it?" The actress, however, apparently wasn't so positive when it came to Joanie Loves Chachi, which co-starred Baio. "I liked working with the people. But I didn't even want to do it. I was talked into it," she said. "I wanted to stay on Happy Days. They were running them at the same time." The Happy Days spinoff only lasted one season from 1982-83.

After the shows were over, Moran opened up about the downsides of growing up on the screen and under the Hollywood spotlight. She said that shortly before her 15th birthday, producers on Happy Days began to pressure her to watch what she ate and to wear more revealing outfits. "They suddenly wanted me to lose weight and become this sexy thing," she said in an interview in 1983. In the mid-1980s, Moran swore off Hollywood and left Los Angeles for a home in the California mountains. In an interview with The Toronto Star in 1988, she said she suffered from depression after the two television series ended and acting offers dried up. "I wanted time off to reassess my life and career," Moran told the newspaper. "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?". She went on to make smaller television appearances on Murder, She Wrote, The Bold and The Beautiful and The Love Boat.

AAP, NYT, with Aja Styles