Tragic Details About Henry Winkler

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Henry Winkler may forever be associated with Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli, the character he immortalized for 11 seasons of "Happy Days," but the lifelong actor actually has quite a wide-ranging resume. He's appeared in big-screen comedies opposite Adam Sandler, popped up in small-screen cartoons like "SpongeBob SquarePants," and there's even a forgotten Hallmark movie featuring Henry Winkler. However, despite his decades-long career and all of his successes, the New York native hasn't always had it easy.

Over the years, Winkler has faced turmoil on the personal front, starting with his difficult childhood. As he told The Guardian in 2011, even the most mundane moment could turn volatile in his household. "I remember having breakfast, it was cereal, and I put my ear down to the bowl to hear the 'snap, crackle and pop,'" he recalled. "My mother exploded and chased me around the table." The struggles didn't disappear when he went off to school — "I was bad at every subject except lunch" — and they continued all the way up through adulthood. Although Winkler has been married to Stacey Weitzman since 1978 and they've raised three kids together, his family life hasn't been picture-perfect, and he's the first to admit it. Here's your look at the tragic side of Henry Winkler's life.

Henry Winkler has often been called one of the kindest people in Hollywood, which makes his difficult childhood particularly surprising. Winkler was born in 1945 to Jewish parents who had escaped Hitler's Germany in 1939 and settled in New York. Whether it was because of that trauma or other factors, the Winkler household was not a happy one. As the actor has since shared, his parents were never kind and put him down because he struggled in school. As Winkler told Today, their line of commentary often ran along the lines of "I wasn't trying hard enough; I was stupid; I was lazy; Not living up to my potential." Their berating even went as far as to include calling their son a "dummer hund" or "dumb dog" in German.

Similarly, as Winkler got older and discovered his passion for acting, he received no support or encouragement from his mom and dad. Even once he found success on "Happy Days," they never gave him any praise, but what they did do was try to take public credit. "They called themselves, which I think was so telling, 'the co-producers of the star,'" Winkler told AP. "Even though they did not want me to do what they later became the creators of."

Ultimately, Winkler decided to distance himself for good and, as he told the outlet, it's not something he regrets. "It might be crazy on my part, but I have never mourned not having a relationship with them," he mused.

'Happy Days' made Henry Winkler a star, but despite his charismatic on-screen persona, he was struggling behind the scenes. Recalling his childhood in his 2023 memoir, "Being Henry: The Fonz ... and Beyond," Winkler wrote, per People. "I was the kid who couldn't read, couldn't spell, couldn't even begin to do algebra or geometry or even basic arithmetic." Those same issues persisted into adulthood and made pursuing acting a challenge. While auditioning for roles, Winkler would try to memorize his lines, rather than reading them in front of a casting director. When he forgot something, he'd simply improvise, but that no longer worked when he had to participate in weekly table reads with the "Happy Days" cast. "I would lose my place, or stumble," he shared in his memoir. "I was constantly failing to give the right cue line." Then there were the words he couldn't pronounce at all. "The other actors would be waiting, staring at me: It was humiliating and shameful," he admitted.

It wasn't until Winkler's stepson, Jed Weitzman, was diagnosed with dyslexia that the actor realized he likely had the same learning disorder. Finally, at 31 years old, the actor learned there was a name for his decades-long struggle — dyslexia — but the newfound realization came with a wave of emotions, including resentment towards his parents. "I was so angry that I was yelled at, humiliated," he told Today. "For what? For nothing."

Following his official dyslexia diagnosis two years into "Happy Days," Henry Winkler was glad to have a name for his condition, but it didn't automatically change his mindset. As he explained to People in 2019, "I thought I was a nobody my whole life," and so, even when The Fonz became one of the most beloved TV characters in the country, his confidence was lacking. "I'm getting 55,000 fan letters a week, but I think I'm stupid," he recalled. "The self-doubt doesn't leave you."

Luckily, the "Happy Days" team was accommodating, even providing his scripts well in advance so he could spend more time with them. However, as the actor confessed in his 2023 memoir, per People, that somehow made him feel even more inadequate. "Everybody in the cast was warm and supportive, but I constantly felt I was letting them down," he shared.

Ultimately, it took a lot of work to get past his self-doubt, as he told CBC, "I had to rebuild myself in order to come out into the sun." With time, he succeeded, but his old demons were never far off. In 2023, a 77-year-old Winkler told Today, "There are times when I am so frustrated by my brain that I hit my head."

Portraying an iconic character can be both a blessing and a curse, and Henry Winkler learned that firsthand. The actor spent 11 seasons playing Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli, so when "Happy Days" went off the air in 1984, it was hard to disassociate himself from that role. "There were eight or nine years at a time when I couldn't get hired because I was The Fonz," he told Today. "I had psychic pain that was debilitating because I didn't know what to do." At the same time, he feared being typecast, so he proactively turned down great opportunities. Indeed, Winkler almost landed John Travolta's role in Grease but ultimately declined it. "I was dumb," he told People. "I spent so many sleepless nights thinking, how do I not get typecast?"

Luckily, Winkler eventually managed to find the reinvention he so craved. In 1985, he started his own production company and hit it out of the park with his first show, the Emmy-nominated "MacGyver." In front of the camera, he began taking on small roles in hits like "The Waterboy" before finding his next big break in "Arrested Development," followed by his Emmy-winning performance in "Barry."

As he told People, he wishes he would have been more open to taking chances sooner. "I spent most of my adult life being frightened, on the outside looking like I had it together and mostly being anxious," he admitted. Sharing the most valuable lesson he's learned, Winkler added, "You have to jump off the precipice and just trust you're going to fly."

Henry Winkler had embodied The Fonz for so long that he struggled to leave the character behind. On the one hand, he wanted to disassociate himself fully and feared being typecast for the rest of his career. On the other hand, he felt untethered as he tried to come to terms with the end of his on-screen persona. "My identity was [tied] to my work because I had no other identity," he explained to People in 2023. "If you look up the word disconnected, emotionally disconnected, in any of the big dictionaries, you will see a picture of me."

Winkler's inner struggle soon started to impact all aspects of his life, from his work to his marriage. One major regret came in the early 2000s when his wife, Stacey Weitzman (whom he married in 1978), was diagnosed with breast cancer. "I was not there; I was not whole," he admitted to People, recalling how he went away for work while she was in chemo and was generally unsupportive. It wasn't until the actor started therapy in 2016 that he began, as he put it, "inching to being something I talked about but couldn't live, which was being authentic." The results were exactly what he'd hoped for, and, in 2023, he enthused, "I am a more present husband."

In his decade of playing Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli, Henry Winkler had plenty of screen time riding a motorcycle, and he made it look easy. However, when he first got on a bike for "Happy Days," it nearly ended in tragedy. Citing his dyslexia, the actor told People, "I couldn't figure out what was the gas, what was the gear, what was the brake." He tried to simply wing it and figure it out on the fly, but as he soon realized, that was a terrible idea. "I nearly killed the head of cinematography," he revealed.

That wasn't the only time Winkler found himself wreaking havoc while driving. In the 1977 flick "Heroes," he was supposed to speed around a track while dodging cars being driven by stuntmen. That was easier said than done because, as he told the outlet, "I stepped on the brake too hard and spun out, and they all had to miss me." It was a mere accident, and he didn't make much of it until he was reprimanded by the other drivers. "I did it by mistake, and they all screeched to a halt and ran over and said, 'Do you understand that you could have just been killed?'" Winkler recalled.

In 2003, tragedy rocked '8 Simple Rules' as its star, John Ritter, died suddenly from a tear in his aorta. The actor experienced chest pain and had vomited on-set that day before heading to the hospital, where he was misdiagnosed with a heart attack and ultimately died. In 2008, his widow, Amy Yasbeck, along with John Ritter's four children, filed a $67 million wrongful death suit against the radiologist and cardiologist who failed to provide a proper diagnosis for Ritter's condition.

When the trial went to court, Henry Winkler was asked to testify. Not only did the actor relive his close friend's death on the stand, but it was revealed that he had actually seen Ritter on set that fateful day. "He seemed to be his usual wonderful self," Winkler told the court, per Los Angeles Daily News, sharing details of a chat they had while prepping to film for "8 Simple Rules." "We were reminiscing," Winkler recalled. "He was sweating [and said] 'I really need to get some water.'" They went their separate ways, and Winkler shared, "That was the last time I saw him." When the cast was suddenly told to go home, Winkler assumed Ritter had left early to celebrate his child's fifth birthday, but he received a call later that evening telling him of the tragic truth.

A year after John Ritter's death, Henry Winkler was dealt a second blow when he lost another person he loved deeply. In 2004, the actor's father-in-law, Ed Furstman, died, and, as Winkler told People, it was as painful as losing a father. "I loved him," he told the mag. "He had an affection for me different than my father — more accessible than my father." Making the situation even more emotional and difficult was the fact that, leading up to Furstman's death, he gradually lost his vision due to age-related macular degeneration. All Winkler and his family could do at the time was look on helplessly. "I literally watched him go from reading his mail to a machine coming in the house that projected and enlarged the letter, to not being able to read," Winkler shared. "To closing his dental practice, to not recognizing his grandchildren."

Furstman's diagnosis later inspired Winkler to partner with Apellis Pharmaceuticals to raise awareness about the condition that took his father-in-law's sight and to encourage regular screenings in people over 60. Explaining his decision to join the campaign, Winkler said in a press release he's become particularly conscious about his eye health and wants others to be as well because "I saw firsthand how profoundly isolating vision loss may be for older adults."

Henry Winkler had another massive hit on his hands when he joined the cast of "Barry" in 2018. The show ran for four seasons, won Winkler his first-ever Emmy Award in 2018, and introduced him to a new generation of fans. Given all that success, news of its end was especially hard on Winkler. Speaking with Vanity Fair following the series finale, which aired in May 2023, the actor shared, "I'm now just sad." Noting how all of his co-stars had since gone off to tackle new projects so he hadn't seen them since December, he continued, "Everybody is everywhere, and I am sad."

Interestingly, Winkler confessed to USA Today that he actually spent the entire series worrying about getting written off. "At the beginning of each season, I had one question for Bill [Hader]: 'Do I get killed?'" he recalled. Despite all that mental preparation, when he finally received confirmation that all the characters were going away because the show was wrapping, it was difficult to come to terms with. "I love this character — it has completely redefined me," he enthused. "I have the same feeling about Barry that I did when 'Happy Days' ended," he continued, explaining he's worried he'll never find a role to top this one.