Henry Winkler — Movies, TV Shows & Roles

Producer · Actor · Director · Writer

1945-10-30 · New York City, New York, USA · Male

79 series in the catalog

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).
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…