Henry Franklin Winkler (born October 30, 1945) is an American actor, producer, director, and author. Widely known for playing Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli on the sitcom Happy Days (1974–1984), Winkler has distinguished himself as a character actor for roles on stage and screen. His many accolades include three Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and two Critics Choice Awards.
Winkler studied theater at both Emerson College and the Yale School of Drama and spent a year and a half with the Yale Repertory Theater. After getting cast in a small role in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, he became a star playing the role of "Fonzie" on the sitcom Happy Days (1974–1984). He then helped develop the original MacGyver television series and directed Memories of Me (1988) and Cop and a Half (1993).
Winkler acted in films such as Heroes (1977), Night Shift (1982), Scream (1996), The Waterboy (1998), Click (2006), The French Dispatch (2021), and Black Adam (2022). He also found a career resurgence in television portraying characters such as Barry Zuckerkorn in Arrested Development (2003–2019), Eddie R. Lawson in Royal Pains (2010–2016), Dr. Saperstein in Parks and Recreation (2013–2015), and Gene Cousineau in Barry (2018–2023). The last earned him the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. Winkler was a member of the main cast of the reality series Better Late Than Never (2016–2018).
Winkler has drawn upon his childhood struggles with dyslexia to co-write the children's book series Hank Zipzer (2003–2010), which was adapted into the Hank Zipzer television series in the United Kingdom (2014–2016) in which Winkler appears as Mr. Rock. He has also written three memoirs: The Other Side of Henry Winkler: My Story (1976), I've Never Met an Idiot on the River (2011), and Being Henry: The Fonz ... and Beyond (2023).
Early life Family history
Winkler's parents, Ilse Anna Marie (née Hadra) and businessman Harry Irving Winkler, were German Jews living in Berlin during the rise of Nazi Germany. By 1939, rising hostilities against Jews led his father to conclude that it was time to leave Germany. He arranged to take his wife on a six-week business trip to the United States. Soon after arriving, his parents settled in New York City, where his father established a new version of his German company, which bought and sold wood.
Winkler's uncle, Helmut Winkler, fled to the Netherlands in January 1940 and went into hiding in Amsterdam. Helmut and his mother, Pauline Olga Winkler, who had emigrated to the Netherlands in January 1939, were deported to Auschwitz in September 1942 and murdered. The building where Helmut had lived in Berlin was destroyed in an air raid in November 1943. A commemorative Stolperstein is embedded in the sidewalk in front of the post-war building erected on the site.
1945–1963: Early life and education Henry Franklin Winkler was born on October 30, 1945, on the West Side of New York City's Manhattan borough. The "H" in his first name is a reference to his Uncle Helmut, while his middle name refers to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He has an older sister named Beatrice.
Although his family did not keep kosher, Winkler was raised in the traditions of Conservative Judaism. During his childhood, Winkler and his family spent their summers at Lake Mahopac, New York, and as a teenager he was a water skiing instructor at Blue Mountain camps.
While growing up, Winkler had a difficult relationship with his father, who wanted him to continue the family business. When his father grew frustrated with Winkler's focus on acting, he would ask his son why he had brought the business over from Germany to the United States. Winkler would respond: "Besides being chased by the Nazis, Dad, was there a bigger reason than that?"
Difficulties in school Winkler first attended P.S. 87 on West 78th Street, Manhattan, and then the McBurney School on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Although he was "outgoing" and "the class comedian" in school, he also lived in a state of "constant anxiety" over his struggles with schoolwork. His parents were perpetually frustrated by his poor grades, referred to him as dummer Hund (dumb dog), and repeatedly punished him for his inability to excel in school. Winkler has said that this time period was "excruciating" as his "self-image was almost nonexistent". In addition, his consistently poor academic performance made it difficult to be involved in the theater, as he was "grounded most of my high school career" and was almost never academically eligible. However, he did manage to appear in two theatrical productions: Billy Budd when he was in the eighth grade and Of Thee I Sing in the eleventh grade.
Although Winkler graduated from the McBurney School in 1963, he was not allowed to attend graduation, as he had to repeat geometry for the fourth time during summer school. After finally passing the course, he received his diploma in the mail.
1963–1970: Emerson College and Yale School of Drama
Winkler applied to 28 colleges but was admitted to only two of them. He enrolled in Emerson College in Boston in 1963, where he majored in theater and minored in child psychology, as he considered becoming a child psychologist if he did not succeed as an actor. He was also a member of the Alpha Pi Theta fraternity, and appeared in Emerson's production of Peer Gynt as the title character. Winkler later recalled that he had nearly failed his first and second years but managed to stay for four years and graduated in 1967. In 1978, Emerson awarded him an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters (DHL).
During his senior year at Emerson, Winkler decided to audition for the Yale School of Drama. Although his then-undiagnosed dyslexia led to his forgetting the Shakespearean monologue he was supposed to perform, forcing him to improvise, Winkler was still admitted to the M.F.A. program in 1967.
Winkler appeared in They Told Me That You Came This Way; Any Day Now, Any Day Now; and The Bacchae (as a member of the chorus). During the summers, he and his Yale classmates stayed in New Haven and opened a summer stock theater called the New Haven Free Theater. They performed various plays including Woyzeck, where he portrayed the title role, and Just Add Water for improv night. He also performed in the political piece, The American Pig at the Joseph Papp Public Theater for the New York Shakespeare Festival in New York City, with classmates James Keach, James Naughton, and Jill Eikenberry. In addition, he also appeared in a number of Yale Repertory Theatre productions while still a student, including, The Government Inspector, The Rhesus Umbrella, Don Juan, Endgame, and The Physicists. He also appeared in Sweeney Agonistes and Hughie. Winkler would later credit his time at Yale as critical to his future success.
Out of his original cohort of 25 actors at Yale, Winkler was one of 11 who graduated when he received his MFA in 1970. Over two decades later, in May 1996, he served as the Senior Class Day Speaker for Yale University's graduating seniors.
Career 1970–1973: Early career Yale Repertory Theatre company After receiving his MFA in 1970, Winkler was one of three students from his graduating class of 11 who were invited to become a part of the Yale Repertory Theatre company. He joined on June 30, 1970, was paid $173 a week, and appeared throughout the 1970–71 season. He performed in Story Theater Repertory, Gimpel the Fool and Saint Julian the Hospitaler and Olympian Games. He also appeared in The Revenger's Tragedy, Where Has Tommy Flowers Gone?, Macbeth, and Woyzeck and Play. He also appeared in a double feature of two works by Bertolt Brecht, The Seven Deadly Sins, and The Little Mahagonny during May–June 1971 and January 20–29, 1972.
Work in New York and California
In the fall of 1971, Winkler was invited to be a part of the play Moonchildren which would open at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. Three weeks into rehearsals, director Alan Schneider fired him as Winkler had been hired to fill the space until the actor that Schneider really wanted was available. At the time, Winkler was certain that because he had been fired, he would never be hired as an actor again.
Winkler moved back to New York, and began to audition for plays, movies, and commercials. He was able to earn a living through performing in commercials, thus, he was able to perform with the Manhattan Theater Club for free.
Winkler's first appearance on Broadway was as "John" in 42 Seconds from Broadway, a play that opened and closed on March 11, 1973. He swore to himself that one day he would "make that right". By 1973, he had roles in two independent films, The Lords of Flatbush and Crazy Joe. He also performed with the improv group, Off the Wall New York. He continued to feel anxiety, however, with the process of cold reading during auditions and depended upon compensation strategies.
By 1973, his agent told him that it was time to leave New York and explore possibilities in California. Although Winkler was initially resistant, thinking he was not a good fit for Hollywood, his agent was persistent. Winkler ultimately decided that he had earned enough money through his work in commercials to try Hollywood for one month. He and his Lords of Flatbush co-star, Perry King, thus traveled to Los Angeles on September 18, 1973. After meeting with his agency's west coast branch, and spending five days going to auditions, Winkler was hired for a small part on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, appearing in Season 4, Episode 10, "The Dinner Party".
1973–1984: Happy Days and stardom During his second week in Los Angeles, Winkler auditioned for the part of Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli, better known as "Fonzie" or "The Fonz", on a new show called Happy Days. Although he was an unknown and not the first choice for the role, he was asked to return after his first audition for a second one in costume. In costume, and with a different voice, Winkler said his six lines, threw his script in the air, and left the room. He was offered the role on his birthday, and accepted it based on his condition that the producers would show who the character was when he took his jacket off. Winkler appeared on the first episode of Happy Days in January 1974, and was with the series continuously until it ended in July 1984.
"The Fonz" was initially written as a minor role and developed as the foil for the central protagonist of the series, Richie Cunningham (Ron Howard). Winkler made his own interpretation of the character during the first episode, choosing not to comb his hair, chew gum, or keep a box of cigarettes rolled in his sleeve like actors typically did with this type of character. Although he tried to explain this philosophy to the producers, he was told he had to follow the script and comb his hair. He thus stood at the mirror, motioned in a way that suggested "Hey I don't have to because it's perfect," and in doing so, created the seminal moment which defined the character. ABC executives did not want to see Fonzie wearing leather, thinking it would imply that the character was a criminal. Thus, during the first season, Winkler wore two different windbreaker jackets, one of which was green. Creator Garry Marshall argued with the executives about the jacket, and eventually they made a compromise: Fonzie could wear the leather jacket, but only in scenes with his motorcycle. Marshall thus made certain that his motorcycle was written into every scene. In reality, Winkler did not know how to ride a motorcycle. As he almost crashed it the first time he tried, he subsequently never rode the motorcycle during the series.