These are busy, happy days for Henry Winkler
Actor to receive honours at Banff World Media Festival
S ince his most famous role was as the terminally cool and forever young Arthur (The Fonz) Fonzarelli on Happy Days, it’s easy to forget that Henry Winkler is now a 68-year-old grandfather.
And like many people of a certain age, the actor, author and producer has developed a talent for efficiently dispensing worldly wisdom through adages and aphorisms.
They come out in full splendour during an interview with Postmedia News about his 40-year-plus career, which the Banff World Media Festival will honour this week with an Award of Excellence.
They also cover a wide range of topics. Longevity: “If you sit a table long enough, the chips come to you” (a saying he credits to his lawyer). Taking a chance: “You cannot catch a trout if your fly is not in the water” (Winkler is an avid fly-fisherman). Having focus: “If you are rudderless, you will literally live your life just puttering in a circle.” (This is one he likes to share when talking to students about his struggles with dyslexia.)
But the one adage that Winkler is living through right now is a little more clichéd.
“I always think about what I’m going to do, not what I have done,” he says. “But at this moment, I’m living the phrase ‘ Be careful what you wish for.’”
Yes, as he closes in on 70, Winkler has long outlived the Fonzie typecasting he fought against early in his career and is probably busier as a versatile character actor.
In fact, for younger viewers, he may be better recognized for his role as the bumbling and sexually ambiguous lawyer Barry Zuckerkorn in Arrested Development, which was recently relaunched on Neflix. He also plays the kindly and butterfly-obsessed administrator Sy Mittleman in Rob Corrdry’s cheerfully deranged comedy Childrens Hospital. He has another recurring role as Ben (Jean-Ralphio) Schwartz’s obstetrician father in Parks and Recreation, and yet another as the Lawson brothers’ charming hustler of a dad on the dramedy Royal Pains.
On top of that, he is about to start shooting the second season of Hank Zipzer, a BBC show based on the 26 children’s novels he has co-written with author Lin Oliver inspired by his own experiences growing up with dyslexia. He plays music teacher Mr. Rock, who is based on one of the few teachers who was supportive of Winkler in school.
And, at the time of this interview, he was waiting to hear if ABC would pick up Winklers, a scripted comedy about a successful actor’s relationship with his son-in-law, co-starring Who’s the Boss star Judith Light. Winkler plays Henry Winkler.
“I had the easiest time researching that role,” Winkler says. “There’s so much information out there.”
Well, OK, he may not have completely escaped being cast in Henry Winkler-type roles, but the actor doesn’t seem as concerned as he once was about his range. Winkler’s early projects outside of Happy Days, after all, included playing a young Vietnam vet suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder opposite Harrison Ford and Sally Field in the 1977 drama Heroes and a henpecked morgue worker turned pimp in Ron Howard’s underrated 1982 comedy Night Shift. Both roles were as different from the Fonz as they were from each other.
But Winkler says, these days, he’s simply interested in keeping busy.
“I had a teacher at the Yale School of Drama,” Winkler said. “He said to us, ‘This is the truth: your job is to get the job. That’s No. 1. Once you get the job, then you figure out how to do it.’ You know, the truth of the matter is, there are so many men and women my age sitting at home and don’t ever get the call, because of ageism or whatever it is.”
Walter Cronkite, Nigel Lythgoe, Eugene Levy, Victor Garber and William Shatner are among those who have been awarded the Banff ’s vaguely titled Award of Excellence in the past. It’s the type of honour that tends to prompt career reflection for its recipient. If that’s the case with Winkler, he seems to reflect mostly on others he has worked with over the years. In fact, a conversation with the actor is dominated by a gracious variation on name-dropping, where he seems to bring up former co-stars, producers and directors for the sole purpose of talking about how great they are. That includes the three co-workers who he proclaims to be bonafide comic “geniuses” — Happy Days creator Garry Marshall, Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz and Saturday Night Live vet Adam Sandler, with whom Winkler worked in Waterboy, Click, Little Nicky and Don’t Mess With the Zohan. Even when talking about projects that didn’t work for one reason or another, such as the short-lived Fox sitcom Monty in the 1990s in which he played an obnoxious right-wing radio host, he is quick to praise costars Kate Burton, David Schwimmer and David Krumholtz.
“David Krumholtz is a heat-seeking missile to the joke,” Winkler insists. “I don’t think the kid, who was 13 at the time, ever rehearsed. He knew funny from the depth of him even at that young age.”
It all seems to flow back to his philosophy in life, that he says has guided his career right up to our current so-called golden age of television.
“I live by two phrases: tenacity, which gets you where you want to go, and gratitude, which doesn’t allow you to be angry along the way,” Winkler says. “So whatever the age is called, I’m telling you right now I am so glad that I am part of it. that I am actually living my dream.”