Biography
A tall blond with surfer/boy band good looks, Erik Von Detten has been involved in the entertainment industry since he was a young child. Before he turned 20, he had already developed a huge fan following in teen magazines and on the web, despite never having garnered an enduring lead role, with as much prominent voice-over work to his credit as onscreen.
Erik Thomas Von Detten was born on October 3, 1982, not too far from the lights of Hollywood in San Diego. By age nine, the home-schooled actor had won a bit part in the film
All I Want for Christmas and a youth role on
Days of Our Lives. In 1995, he put his expressive voice to its first and most memorable use as Sid Phillips, the vicious toy-mangling next-door neighbor in Disney and Pixar's blockbuster hit
Toy Story. Von Detten has since developed an ongoing relationship with Disney, providing voices for
Hercules (1997),
Tarzan (1999), the 2001 TV spin-off
The Legend of Tarzan, and both the TV and big-screen incarnations of Disney's
Recess franchise.
Von Detten's first notable onscreen film role was as Wally Cleaver in the big-screen adaptation of
Leave It to Beaver (1997). This appearance enabled lead roles in the TV movies Brink! and
Replacing Dad (both 1998), as well as recurring roles on the series So Weird and ABC's short-lived "TGIF" sitcom
Odd Man Out, in which he played the only male in a house full of women (including matriarch
Markie Post). Von Detten's most widely seen role came in 2001, when he played the shallow hunk whom
Anne Hathaway's character covets in the Disney hit
The Princess Diaries. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide