‘Being Henry, The Fonzie and Beyond…’ comes out in Italy

From the relationship with parents to the roots of Jewish culture, from the first theatrical experiences to the daily confrontation with dyslexia and cognitive difficulties. Limits that, thanks to commitment and determination, he will be able to transform into the true engine of his success in the world of cinema. Hundreds of auditions, scripts learned by heart to overcome reading difficulties, small parts in advertisements and independent films: this is the long path that will finally lead him to great success with the character we all know as Fonzie. While on the one hand Winkler will always remain grateful and fond of that fundamental step in his career, from the pages of the book it also emerges how difficult it was, in the following years, to free himself from that label and demonstrate that his talent went far beyond the iconic lines of Arthur Fonzarelli.

With some passages written in the first person by his wife Stacey, the book returns all the chiaroscuro of his journey: from the explosion of popularity linked to Fonzie up to the present day, passing through long and frustrating periods of inactivity. Winkler says, for example, that Fonzie’s enormous success ended up overshadowing the other protagonists of the show. The television network even secretly contacted him with the idea of ​​making a spin-off dedicated to the character or changing the title of the series to ‘Fonzie’s Happy Days’: a proposal that the actor categorically rejected. In the following years there were several appearances as guest stars in successful series such as Arrested Development – Meet the Parents, Royal Pains and Parks and Recreation, until the turning point represented by Barry in 2018, a series that will become the second great pillar of his career and will win him his first Emmy in prime time. In 2003 Winkler also dedicated himself to children’s literature, writing the adventures of Hank Zipzer, a boy with dyslexia who faces and overcomes numerous scholastic difficulties.

The 28-book Hank Zipzer the Superdisaster series is in fact directly inspired by his personal experience with dyslexia that remained undiagnosed for a long time. The memoirs of Winkler, who throughout his career was an actor, director, producer and voice actor, are full of funny and often little-known anecdotes. Not everyone knows, for example, that he was the producer of the famous television series MacGyver, and that he required the use of as many as forty horses for the launch of the teaser. Among the episodes he mentions is his participation in a film as a substitute for an actor who had had disagreements with Sylvester Stallone: ​​it was Richard Gere. Or when he witnessed Meryl Streep being kicked out of a casting for a film in which Harrison Ford was also starring. This told him about an unidentified science fiction film that he had shot almost entirely on green screen: Star Wars. He also remembers a shy Robin Williams at the audition for Happy Days and tells how the ABC network infuriated his great friend Ron Howard so much during filming that he almost out of spite pushed him towards a career as a film director.

There is no shortage of hilarious episodes, such as when, while directing Burt Reynolds in the film ‘A Cop and a Half’, he saw a bottle of water thrown at him. Or when he decided to add his entire salary to the fee just to convince Burt Lancaster to participate in one of his films. In his career as a director he has worked, among others, with Dolly Parton and Tom Hanks, recalling the latter’s small part played years earlier in Happy Days. From one coast to the other in the United States he happens to participate in a basketball game organized by his friend Adam Sandler, where he also meets Brad Pitt and Jim Carrey. And he tells how his presence in the cult movie Scream should have been overshadowed by the production, only to be valorised after the enthusiastic response of the public, to the point of even appearing in the promotion of the film. A final curiosity: in the Italian version of Happy Days the series is entirely dubbed, with the exception of the famous and unmistakable ‘Ayyy!’ by Fonzie.