艾丽卡·皮特斯，She was born Maria Erika Knab in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) in Eastern Prussia. As routes to Hollywood go, hers was both dramatic and circuitous. Erika's parents were killed near the end of World War II by Red Army soldiers. The ten-year old orphan may have been one of the tens of thousands of civilians who were lucky enough to be evacuated in 1945. Little is known about the next decade of her life, but, in 1955, Erika turned up in West Berlin. There, she acted (as Erika Knab) in a few motion pictures, even had a leading role in Das Sandmännchen (1955), a fairy tale for children loosely based on Oscar Wilde's The Canterville Ghost. She also signed a contract with the short-lived Berolina production company and went on to dub the voice of Mickey Mouse for German viewers. Sometime during this period, she became Erika Peters after marrying an American citizen.In 1957, Erika arrived in the U.S., initially making ends meet by importing used Volkswagens (without, apparently, an agency license). Reinvesting her earnings from this enterprise, she then ran a coin-operated laundromat in Los Angeles. In 1959, Erika made her screen debut on American television. She was featured in several movies, including Elvis Presley's G.I. Blues (1960), Heroes Die Young (1960) (headlining, as the daughter of a Romanian partisan) and a couple of low budget horror films (Mr. Sardonicus (1961) and House of the Damned (1963)). In addition, she guest starred in a handful of popular TV shows. In one particular instance, she was picked to appear in an episode of Jack Webb's G.E. True (1962), because an actress with a German accent was required who also "could fit into a normal-sized suitcase" (this, for an episode about an escape from communist East Berlin entitled "The Suitcase Man").In 1961, Erika obtained a divorce from her first husband. Three years later, she married the costume designer Sy Devore and permanently retired from acting. Alas, Devore died less than two years later from a heart