RIP Erika Peters

 Erika Brunson, 86, animal advocate, actress, interior decorator, & furniture maker

Animals 24-7

By Merritt Clifton

May 28, 2022

 

Erika Brunson, 86, animal advocate, actress, interior decorator, & furniture maker

Rose from rough start in life to philanthropic success

Animal advocacy and spay/neuter philanthropist Erika Devore Brunson, 86, died in Los Angeles, California on May 17, 2022.

Maria Erika Knab, her original given name, was born on September 4, 1935, “in the small fishing town of Konigsberg in East Prussia,” according to an October 16, 2013 blog post by her much younger friend, actress Jolene Blalock, whose married name is Rapino.

“As a young girl,” continued Blalock,” all she knew was her small family in this quiet town. She spent her summers running along the seaside as the ocean lapped salt and seaweed over jagged rocks and the birch trees stretched out their long trunks toward the heavens.  The seals bobbed their heads, the dolphins played as dolphins do, and the whales seemed to hold court in the ocean.

“It was a postcard setting,” Blalock alleged, “until the Red Army came in and viciously forced her, her family and friends out of the only world they ever knew.”

Shortening her name to simply Erika Knab and finding her way to West Berlin, she debuted as an actress in 1955 with a bit part in the German film Eine Frau genuegt nicht, released in English as One Woman Is Not Enough.

Altogether, Erika Knab played in 21 Berlin-made films, but earned her living chiefly by dubbing the voice of Mickey Mouse in translated versions of U.S.-made cartoon features.

Apparently married for the first time in Germany, possibly to a U.S. citizen, Erika Kanb arrived in Hollywood in 1957 as Erika Peters, while still under contract to the Berolina film studio in West Berlin.

Erika Peters “kept commuting between West Berlin and Hollywood, bringing in Volkswagens,” recounted New York Times Hollywood correspondent Charles Whitbeck in 1962.  They were new Volkwagens, but because she drove them to the ships bringing them to the U.S., Erika Peters reputedly declared them to U.S. Customs as used.

Also playing roles in the films G.I. Blues and Heroes Die Young, and House of the Damned (1963), Erika Peters left the acting business after her August 1964 marriage to Beverly Hills clothing designer Sy Devore, who at age 55 was 26 years older.

Erika Knab, later Peters, became Erika Devore, but Sy Devore died of a heart attack in July 1966.  She then fought, and won, a year-long court battle against Devore’s previous wife, Mary Lou Laramore, to retain custody of Sy’s 14-year-old adopted daughter, Lisa Devore, who was heiress to most of the half-million-dollar Devore estate.

Erika Devore, according to gossip columnists, in November 1968 began dating her eventual third husband, Century Fast Foods mogul Robert M. Brunson.  Robert M. Brunson had previously been married to actress Cathy Downs (1924-1976) from 1955 until their divorce in 1963.

 

PETERS, Erika (Maria Erika Knab)

Born: 9/4/1935, Königsberg, East Prussia, Germany

Died: 5/17/2022, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

 

Erika Peters westerns – actress:

Sugarfoot (TV) – 1960, 1961 (Inga Bernstrom, Olga Svenson)

Bonanza (TV) – 1961 (Eloise Villon)

Outlaws (TV) – 1962 (Hulda Christianson)

Death Valley Days (TV) – 1963 (Julia Farrar)

Wide Country (TV) – 1963 (Ilona Lukins)