E-mail a friendHenry Winkler
airdate May 13, 2005
Best known to millions as "The Fonz" on TV's Happy Days, Henry Winkler has enjoyed an award-winning career as an actor, director and producer, spanning some three decades. He grew up in New York and began his career in commercials. Winkler works with numerous children's groups and is a founding member of the Children's Action Network. He's also written a series of best-selling children's books, inspired by his own struggle with dyslexia. The latest in the series is Hank Zipzer: The World's Greatest Underachiever.
Henry Winkler
Tavis: I'm pleased to welcome Henry Winkler to this program. The television icon is also a talented producer, director, and accomplished children's author. Did you know that? His most recent book is called--and you gotta love this title-- 'Summer School'! What genius thought that up? Back in February he produced and starred in the reunion for his seminal sitcom 'Happy Days.' The special drew nearly two0 million viewers. And for the last two5 years, the leather jacket that Henry Winkler wore as the Fonz--there you see the picture--has been hanging in the Smithsonian. But this weekend you can catch him on the season finale of the NBC series 'Crossing Jordan.' The show airs Sunday night at 10 p.m. Here now a scene from 'Crossing Jordan.'
Dr. Jack Slocumb: Hi, I'm Dr. Jack Slocumb. Effective immediately-- Put your food down. Do you think I'm--do you think I'm kidding? Put...the food down. OK. Effectively immediately, the governor has asked me to assume the duties of the acting chief medical examiner. Garret Macy has been suspended pending an internal investigation.
Jordan: Where is he?
Dr. Slocumb: If you have any questions about my appointment, call the governor. Let me save you some time--this was Bob's decision.
Tavis: Mr. Winkler, nice to have you on the program.
Winkler: What a pleasure to be here.
Tavis: The pleasure's mine. I'm glad to have you here.
Winkler: Thank you.
Tavis: Let me start--I mentioned in the introduction--I called you, at least, an icon. How does an icon choose, pick and choose roles that he wants to appear in, like the season finale of 'Crossing Jordan'?
Winkler: OK, here's the truth. And this is not even modesty. I don't consider myself to be an icon. I consider myself to be a very short actor...
Tavis: Oh, you couldn't say no, then.
Winkler: I couldn't say no. And then they wrote me into the first episode of the new season. So they just accepted me into their family. It was great.
Tavis: I'm glad you answered that the way you did. What I was trying to get at, in part, is whether or not, even after all these years, there's certain considerations--
Winkler: No. The only consideration that I have is it doesn't feel right to me. I literally function viscerally. My stomach will always tell me if I'm in the right place or not.
Tavis: Well, with all respect to your kids, they may not agree, but there's something--at least small iconic--when you've got a jacket hanging in the Smithsonian. Come on, now.
Winkler: No, no, no. I will tell you that I am very proud of that. I really am.
Tavis: Absolutely.
Winkler: I mean, yeah, my jacket is in a museum, but the thing is that when my daughter was younger, and there was a cute guy, I was an icon. When there was no cute guy, I was a pain in her ass.
Tavis: Yeah.
Winkler: I mean, let's just say it the way it is.
Tavis: Yeah. The 'Happy Days'-- I know you've been asked 1,001 'Happy Days' questions over the years. And speaking of which, happy birthday early. You turn 60 this year.
Winkler: October 30.
Tavis: October 30.
Winkler: October 30. And, uh, 32½, 16½.
Tavis: Somebody write that down for me.
Winkler: I have no pride, and I enjoy gifts.
Tavis: Somebody write that down so I can send Mr. Winkler a gift in October.
Winkler: Thank you.
Tavis: But happy birthday early. I can't believe you're turning 60. You look great.
Winkler: Thank you very much.
Tavis: You're very welcome.
Winkler: Do I look 60?
Tavis: No, you do not. You look about 3two 1/two.
Winkler: There you go.
Tavis: How 'bout that? That said, the 'Happy Days' special that aired back in February was phenomenal...two million viewers. You were also one of the producers of the 'Dallas' reunion.
Winkler: Yes, with Michael Levitt. Michael Levitt is my producing partner. Yeah.
Tavis: Tell me--and I understand--I hear, at least, you guys are working on perhaps doing some other reunion-type specials.
Winkler: Yes.
Tavis: Tell me about this genre and what attracts you to it. What makes it work? 'Cause lots of people tune in for these things.
Winkler: I'll tell you exactly. One is the reunion is--let's take 'Happy Days.' It's a show that's 30 years old. It was the highest rated show for ABC on a Thursday night in two years. So that says something about people's need to feel a sense of warmth--television that does not scare them out of their minds. The world is tough enough. People want to come home--I don't know that they're interested, necessarily, in cutting edge. I think they're interested in being taken care of. You know, which television does very well.
The genre of the reunion turns out to be some of America's most favorite programming. It brings them back to a time that, you know, they felt differently than they do now. It is so scary now. Today, as we're speaking, they cleared out the White House because there was a plane that flew several times into the airspace. They sent bombers up--the jets-- the fighter jets--to get this plane. That's the world we live in today, you know?
Tavis: I don't know if I'm treading on egg--
Winkler: I'll let you know.
Tavis: You let me know. Just don't slap me. I'll lean back.
Winkler: Let's see where we're treading.
Tavis: I don't know if I'm treading on eggshells here, but something, which I started to mention to you before we came on the air here--something hit me in an interesting sort of way when I was preparing for this conversation. Maybe I'm ignorant, I don't know.
Winkler: I don't think you're ignorant.
Tavis: Wouldn't be the first time I've been called ignorant. But I didn't know that you were Jewish.
Winkler: Yes.
Tavis: And the minute--
Winkler: Well, you can tell just from being short.
Tavis: I know some brothers that are short, you know. But that's another issue.
Winkler: We Jews are...
Tavis: I did not know that you were Jewish, and the minute I realized that, as one who watched 'Happy Days' all those years--big fan of the show, I was trying to imagine how a Jew--'cause you played an Italian on the show...
Winkler: I did.
Tavis: How would a Jew have fit into Milwaukee and in the clique of his friends back then?
Winkler: Well, you know, I think that, first of all, Tom Miller, who was one of the founding members of the show, he was sitting in an airport with Michael Eisner when they came up with the idea. He was from Milwaukee. His parents owned a dry cleaner in Milwaukee. They were part of a thriving Jewish community in Milwaukee. I've always thought that the Italians, the passion, the open-heartedness was very similar to being Jewish. So it was not a tremendous leap to go from one to the other.
Tavis: Do short Jews ride motorcycles, though?
Winkler: No, they don't. And especially a dyslexic short Jew. Because, you know, you've got your things here and the things here, and then you got the things here. I couldn't get them all going together. So, no. I sat on it very well, did I not?
Tavis: You sat on it extremely well.
Winkler: Was I great sitting?
Tavis: You can still sit.
Winkler: I'm a good sitter.
Tavis: Sit on it.
Winkler: I will.
Tavis: Speaking of your dyslexia, and thank you for the setup--
Winkler: That's what I'm here for.
Tavis: Thank you, sir. This series of books around the character Hank Zipzer--
Winkler: As a matter of fact, Hank watches 'Crossing Jordan.'
Tavis: Hank does?
Winkler: He does.
Tavis: I raise this only because--not only because--it's a great series. But I raise it because this is, to your point, a long way from dyslexia. You're writing books, and you were dyslexic. Tell me how you discovered that you were dyslexic.
Winkler: All right. My stepson Jed, who's now 34--in the third grade, very smart, very funny, very verbal--couldn't write a book report. Wrote, like, two sentences, and they were smudgy. And he would erase, and he would erase a hole in the paper. So I said everything to him that was said to me: 'You're lazy. Come on, you're so smart. You're not living up to your potential.' We had him tested, and lo and behold, everything they said to Jed applied to me. And at 31 I learned that I wasn't stupid, the I wasn't lazy, and that I was trying to live up to my potential. I had a learning challenge. Alan Berger, who is an agent, and for a moment was my manager, said, 'Why don't you write a book about dyslexia for kids?' I went, OK. He said, 'I'm gonna introduce you to Lin Oliver. She's a friend of mine, and she's a great writer.' and I said OK. So we had a terrible meal. The food was horrible.
Tavis: This was not at Rosemary Clooney's house, obviously.
Winkler: This was not at Rosemary Clooney's house, no.
Tavis: Only good meals over there.
Winkler: And not only that, but Rosemary Clooney always had chocolate milk in the icebox for me when I--'cause I loved chocolate milk at the time. So, we had a terrible meal, great meeting, and we were contracted for 4 books. We are now contracted for 1two.
Tavis: Wow.
Winkler: And there are over 1 million books in print. And Lin and I write together. They are intertwined. It's not 'as told to.' I don't use a computer, Lin does. So she sits at her Dell, and we write them funny first. We get letters from librarians, from teachers, from parents, and from the kids, and all of them use the same word: hilarious. It makes me feel good.
Tavis: It should make you feel good. You have done two things--
Winkler: You're holding the eighth book. I don't mean to push.
Tavis:
Winkler: But you don't overcome it. You live with it. You learn to incorporate it into your life. Somebody said to me once, 'If you could, would you do it all over again without a learning challenge?' At the beginning of my career, I always said yes. Now I understand that maybe it was the fuel. The humiliation, the anger, the having to figure it out another way--maybe that's what got me sitting in this chair talking to you.
Tavis: Second thing. Second thing that got you in this chair.
Winkler: Hello.
Tavis: I'm rather impressed and rather amazed--and this is not brownie points or sucking up here. I mean this sincerely. People who find stardom early on in their careers--certainly in your case, 30 plus years ago?
Winkler: Yes. You keep mentioning that.
Tavis: Well, I'm only raising it because--
Winkler: My walker...I need it close.
Tavis: That's not why I said that. As the black preacher says, 'Stay with me. I'm going somewhere with this.'
Winkler: OK, I'm with you.
Tavis: 'I'm going somewhere with this. Stay with me.'
Winkler: I'm on the train. I've got my ticket.
Tavis: Here's where I'm going with this. You had stardom 30 plus years ago.
Winkler: Yes, I did. It's over now.
Tavis: I understand that. It didn't stop you, though. You were able to navigate your way from that to being a producer, to writing books. How did you navigate that? Did you plan this?
Winkler: You know how? I'll tell you.
Tavis: How'd you get in this chair tonight?
Winkler: I'll tell you, there are two reasons. One is tenacity, and one is I never wanted to be in the book where are they now?
Tavis: Right.
Winkler: I never wanted to be a flash in the pan. So, tenacity and fear together form a rocket that just takes you through life. I did not want to fall off the edge of the earth. And I am grateful every minute that I get to do all this incredible stuff that I get to do.
Tavis: Well, there you are. Two words for the day: tenacity and fear. The series of books, Hank Zipzer, 'Summer School'--What genius thought that up?--is the one out now.
Winkler: Now, the sixth one was 'Holy Enchilada!' But the real title was 'Holy Enchilada, My Teacher Has Gas!' But they wouldn't let us put that on the cover. But now you know.
Tavis: Pick up any one of the Hank Zipzer series, and check out 'Crossing Jordan' this Sunday at 10 P.M. on NBC.
Winkler: Jill Hennessey, is she cute or what?
Tavis: Very much. That's an understatement. Nice to see you. Nice to have you on.
Winkler: OK.
Tavis: Up next on this program, best-selling author Anne Lamott--
Winkler: Did you say 'Crossing Jordan'?
Tavis: 'Crossing Jordan', Sunday night at 10 P.M., but up next, Anne Lamott. But first, here's where it all began for Henry Winkler, a little show called...
Winkler: Was she on 'Crossing Jordan', too? Anne Lamott? I don't remember.
Tavis: ...'Happy Days'.
Back to May 13, 2005