Erickson, the oldest of eight children,^[2] was raised first in Port Angeles, Washington, before moving with her family to Seattle, Washington,^[1] where she graduated from Cleveland High School in 1954.^[3] She started her modeling career at 14^[3] or 15^[4] after winning a contest to model for the Seattle department store Frederick & Nelson.^[3] In 1954, she won the Miss Maritime beauty pageant and in 1955 won Miss Greenwood and competed to be Seafair Queen.^[1] She was also Miss Longshoreman.^[4]

With two fellow Seafair Princesses, future actresses Dorothy Provine and Dyan Cannon, Erickson visited San Francisco, where she found work for Macy's department store,^[2] earning $600 weekly at age 19. She left the University of Washington to pursue a modeling career, signing with the Ford Modeling Agency in New York City.^[4] Erickson did photo shoots for fashion layouts and for cosmetics companies such as Max Factor,^[4] and appeared on 13^[1] or 18^[2] album covers for artists such as the Kingston Trio (Sold Out), Cy Coleman (Piano Witchcraft), Nat King Cole (Wild Is Love), and The Sandpipers (Guantanamera).^[1][2]

The modeling led in early 1960 to Paramount Pictures signing her as a contract player.^[1] Her contract was later traded to Warner Bros.^[2] She was scheduled to appear in the film The Pleasure of His Company and did have roles in Love in a Goldfish Bowl and Jerry Lewis' The Ladies Man. She also appeared in episodes of the TV detective shows Surfside 6 and 77 Sunset Strip and the comedy-drama Father Knows Best.^[1][2]

Art director Peter Whorf, at the time engaged to Erickson's best friend, used Erickson on many Capitol Records shoots.^[1] During this time, she became acquainted with trumpeter and A&M Records co-founder Herb Alpert, and watched part of the recording of The Lonely Bull album in Alpert's garage in 1962.^{[citation needed]}

The photo shoot for the cover of the 1965 Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass album Whipped Cream & Other Delights — which remained in the Billboard top 10 for 61 weeks, and whose sexy cover became a cultural touchstone^[4] — began in mid-morning, went on through the afternoon, and paid Erickson approximately $1,500 plus expenses.^[1] The shoot took place in Whorf's studio, a converted garage. Erickson, 29 years old and three months pregnant, sat on a stool with a white Christmas blanket covering her from the waist down, and wore a bikini with the straps down. She then was covered with shaving cream, which (unlike whipped cream) would not melt under the hot photographic lights, with a dollop of whipped cream on her head.^[3] As the shoot progressed, the shaving cream began to slide down her breasts slightly. Months later, Whorf sent her two outtakes.^[1] When she saw the more risqué pictures, she took them over to a girlfriend's house and hid them behind the friend's refrigerator, not wanting her conservative husband to find them.^[1][4] Initially, Alpert felt the cover image "was maybe pushing it a little too far ... I thought the censors would be down on it. But in 2006 it looks pretty darn tame."^[5]

In the 1970s, Erickson returned to college, studying art in Portland, Oregon. She began painting, and owned the art gallery The Wild Deer, in Kelso, Washington, for a decade. As of the mid-2000s, she continued to paint what one newspaper called "Impressionist-style works in her duplex on Columbia Heights."^[2]

In the early 1960s Erickson was living in San Francisco. After signing a contract with Paramount Studios she moved to Los Angeles. Erickson later spent a year in Mexico modeling on contract for Lonka Becker before moving to New York, where she met and married businessman Bert Neirick,^[1] with whom she had a son, Brett.^[4] The couple divorced, and in the 1970s she married attorney Bob Huffhines Jr. They resided in Longview, Washington and were married for 42 years before divorcing.^[2][3]