Henry Winkler may have been the breakout on ‘70s sitcom Happy Days, but he was far from having his own on a regular basis. Hidden behind the leather jacket, motorcycle and jukebox-whacking, Winkler was struggling with dyslexia, something that greatly affected his work and confidence.
As detailed in his upcoming book, Being Henry: The Fonz…and Beyond (out on October 31st), Henry Winkler said that it took him until he was already on Happy Days to even realize he had a learning disorder. In an excerpt made available by People, Winkler writes, “I didn’t find out I was severely dyslexic until I was thirty-one. For all the years before that, I was the kid who couldn’t read, couldn’t spell, couldn’t even begin to do algebra or geometry or even basic arithmetic…Even in the midst of Happy Days, at the height of my fame and success, I felt embarrassed, inadequate.” Winkler remembered flubbing line readings, thus ruining the jokes. He, too, would request scripts ahead of time, which put a burden on the show’s writers.
Henry Winkler added, “All this at the height of my fame and success, as I was playing the coolest guy in the world. When I found out that I had something with a name, I was so f—g angry. All the misery I’d gone through had been for nothing,” writing he had a revelation that helped him come to terms with his dyslexia. “All the yelling, all the humiliation, all the screaming arguments in my house as I was growing up – for nothing… It was genetic! It wasn’t a way I decided to be! And then I went from feeling this massive anger to fighting through it.”
While we’ll always know him as The Fonz, Henry Winkler would go on to have a consistent movie and TV career, perhaps most notably on the small screen with roles on Arrested Development and HBO’s Barry, a performance that earned him his first Primetime Emmy. And we’ll always love his small role as Principal Himbry in Scream, which coyly paid homage to Fonzie. He would also give directing a go, although the less we think about Cop and a Half, the better…
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