‘The Fonz’ is Winkler’s lifelong blessing
Henry Winkler is 63 now, but it doesn’t matter. He remains, and will always be, The Fonz, a. k. a. Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli, the lovable, leather-jacketed high school dropout/ greaser on the legendary 1950s-themed ABC sitcom “Happy Days.” It doesn’t much matter that the show has been off the air for 23 years, or that he finds himself two years shy of collecting Social Security checks. The Fonz is forever.
But you will hear no wrenching tales of Winkler’s fruitless struggles to escape Fonzie’s mammoth shadow. He acknowledges that not a day goes by when he isn’t stopped by someone gushing about The Fonz or addressing him with the character’s trademark thumbs-upraised greeting of “Heyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!”.
“I’ve come to accept it as the lifelong blessing that it is,” Winkler says, “I mean, how bad can it be? The jacket is in the Smithsonian. They just erected a life-size Fonzie statue in the city of Milwaukee. I’ve been knighted by the government of France. What do I have to complain about? Nothing at all, honestly.”
The truth is that the typecasting issues have dogged Winkler for more than two decades, so he’s got a legitimate gripe or three. But that simply isn’t his way. And besides, he hasn’t much allowed the Fonz albatross to hold him back, carving out an impressive post- “Happy Days” career as a prolific producer, director and actor, as well as children’s book author and avid trout fisherman.
The latest Winkler project arrives on the Hallmark Channel with the original holiday film “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” premiering at 9 p. m. Saturday. It finds him portraying kindly (of course) a retired cop who fights to teach his Scrooge-like workaholic niece (played by Brooke Burns) what the Christmas spirit is all about through the example of a nomadic stranger (Warren Christie). If that sounds like standard yuletide movie fare, it surely didn’t feel that way to a guy whose sunny view of life never seems to waver, painting him as the rare eternal optimist in that pessimistic and cynical jungle known as Hollywood.
“We shot it in Vancouver in just 15 days, and the thing was smooth as silk,” Winkler notes. “I got to work with this amazing cast . . . The whole thing was just blessed from start to finish.”
Winkler accepts nothing less than soul-fulfilling grandeur. He describes everything in his life as “a gift” or “the best” or “so wonderful,” and coming from him it sounds utterly authentic rather than hyperbolic. The man just loves his life, loves his wife of 30 years, Stacey, and his three grown kids. And at the risk of making him sound like a saint, he loves giving back, too, devoting significant time, energy and resources to a host of children’s charities.
His dedication to kids also has driven Winkler to co-author 15 children’s novels with partner Lin Oliver that have sold more nearly 3 million copies, based around the theme of a kid with dyslexia — which Winkler struggled with throughout his childhood and into adulthood.
“I’ve never taken anything for granted,” he emphasizes. “I always tell my wife and kids to take their pick and ax and mine the system every day, because you never know what tomorrow will bring. You have to just keep moving forward.”
That Winkler has, and continues to do. A production company that he started in the mid- 1990s has been a consistent success, with credits including everything from “MacGyver” to the UFO phenomena entry “Sightings.” He has also directed the occasional series episode and has continued to act, with recurring roles on the Emmywinning Fox series “Arrested Development” and the NBC comedy “Out of Practice.” Winkler also supplies the voice of a German teacher named Willard Deutschbog on the forthcoming animated comedy “Sit Down, Shut Up.”
On the cover: Henry Winkler, Brooke Burns and Connor Levins star in “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”
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