New York's loss was LA's gain. When Sunset Beach's Cristi Ellen Harris (Emily) ws just 15, she moved to the Big Apple with her mother, hoping to make it as a model. After six months of pounding the pavement without much success, she flew to the West Coast to visit two of her brothers who were in a band. Within days, she signed with the William Morris Agency for acting and Wilhelmina for modeling. (Coincindentally, Wilhelmina is the same modeling agency that first thrust DAY's Kristian Alfonso (Hope) into the spotlight).

"I thought, 'why stay in New York where I can't get anything happening when I can come out here?'" Harris remembers. "I immediately booked a commerial and got a movie." That first fateful commercial was actually a Doritos spot starringa then-unknown Tobey Maguire (The Ice Storm).

Now Harris is in the chips on Sunset Beach. Harris may have ben a little nervous at the beginning, but her costars made her feel right at home. "Randy (Spelling, Sean) made me feel comfortable from the start," she says of her onscreen love interest. In fact, the young spelling put her at ease during her screen test. "I didn't know what to expect. You know, he's 'Randy Spelling' an that's a huge thing. He shook my hand and said 'Welcome.' After we went through it once, we were suppose to rehearse it again. They decided we were going to tape it. I was behind a door for the test, and he peeks his head in and says, 'This is a take. Just thought I'd let you know.' Then he shut the door. That was so sweet because people don't usually do things like that.

Indeed, Harris has met a lot of people in her life. Although a self-proclaimed "Georgia peach," she never spent much time in the state of her birth. Her father worked for United Airlines and the family moved often, whenever he got promoted. Harris found herself going from the ski slopes of Colorado to the beaches of Hawaii before the family finally settled down in Sacramento, California. "I was going to college and medical school," says Harris, explaining their move from exotic Waikiki to the middle of California. "They had better schools there and it was cheaper."

But her plans changed when she decided to pursue acting. Living in Santa Monica at the time with her mom (parents had divorced), Harris made an early exit from high school and got her GED instead. "I went through tenth grade, then dropped out because I was bored," she explains. Actually, like most dropouts, Harris left so she could attend college. "If anybody does drop out of high school, I recommend going straight into college!" she says, laughing. (But she's been in college for a long time, her busy work schedule hasn't let her finish - yet.)

Harris got her first taste of showbiz when she visited her brother, who was working on the Chicago set of the 1990 TV movie The Kid Who Loved Christmas, which starred Sammy Davis Jr. (in his last role), Cicely Tyson, Ben Vereen and Della Reese. "I talked to all these people," she recalls. "It was amazing. When I took acting classes outside of high school, I started loving it. I haven't been able to stop since."

Harris' parents have always supported her career choice. "I don't think most parents really want their child to go into this." she admits. "Most would rather have their kids go to school, have a nice, balanced life and daily routine. But they realize that's not going to be me. They're glad I chose this life because I'm happy."

In LA, she nabbed TV guest roles on Full House, Growing Pains and America's Most Wanted, and appeared with Stephen Dorff in the film Rescue Me. "They play it a lot on cable," she says with a shrug.

But, she says, she's been recognized most for her "drop dead" performance in Night of the Demons Part II - when she was just 16. "I was the ingenue character," she clarifies when asked if she got to inhabit on the undead. "I got to scream a lot. I'm a great screamer. All I did was run around screaming, and I got to kill somebody, too."