Background
Erik Thomas von Detten was born in San Diego, California. He is the son of Susan von Detten (née Farber), a photographer, and Volker von Detten. His father is an immigrant from Munich, Germany.
His mother, who is American-born, is of half Russian Jewish and half English ancestry.
Career
He is known for his roles in Escape to Witch Mountain, Toy Story, Brink!, The Princess Diaries, Complete Savages, and So Weird. One of von Detten"s earliest roles was Nicholas Alamain on the daytime soap opera Days of Our Lives from 1992 until 1993. Nicholas was revealed to be the secret son of Lawrence Alamain (Michael Sabatino) and Carly Manning (Crystal Chappell), two of the show"s major characters.
As a result, von Detten was heavily involved in some of the show"s main storylines, despite only being 10 years old at the time.
Perhaps the most notable storyline during von Detten"s time on the soap was Nicholas" accidental killing of his father"s lover Lisanne Gardner, who had been attempting to blackmail Lawrence over the secret of Nicholas"s parentage. In 1995, when he was 13, Von Detten provided the voice of the villainous toy-destroyer Sid Phillips in the hit movie Toy Story.
In 1996, he starred in the American Broadcasting Company family original movie Christmas Every Day. He starred as Wally Cleaver in the 1997 movie Leave lieutenant to Beaver and also starred as the title character in the Disney Channel original movie Brink! in 1998.
Von Detten has also appeared in a theatrical release as the jerk Josh Bryant in The Princess Diaries in 2001.
In addition, he has made several television appearances in shows like Dinotopia (2002), the first celebrity edition of the American Broadcasting Company reality show The Mole, the third season"s Celebrity Mole Hawaii (2003), in which he was runner-up, as well as Disney Channel"s So Weird, and Fox"s Malcolm in the Middle. Von Detten has also played the part of Chris Savage in the short-lived sitcom Complete Savages. In 2007, he made his stage debut in the children"s play The Christmas Princess in Santa Monica.
In 2009, he was featured in the music video "Wanted" by popular singer Jessie James.
In 2010, he made a brief cameo appearance in Toy Story 3 reprising his role as Sid Phillips, who is now a garbageman in his 20s.