Copyright mirror
He was playing a teenager but by the time he had finished starring as The Fonz in Happy Days, Henry Winkler was 37. Joking as if he were a zoo specimen, Henry, 80 today, says: “I was the oldest teenager in captivity!” The Fonz-like swagger that made teenage hearts flutter in the US sitcom – which ran from 1974 to 1984 – is still present as he presents a quirky new Sky History show . In Perilous Play, the first of eight episodes of Hazardous History starting on November 17, he examines shocking everyday activities and products that were once considered normal. Winkler asks: “Did you know there was once a time when kids played with a science kit that was actually radioactive? Do you remember playgrounds before safety standards? Or when the hottest new toy came with a blow torch? “These are the things we used to do for fun, for money, or maybe out of boredom, that we’ll never see again. Were they dangerous? Certainly. Deadly? Occasionally. But boy, wasn’t it exciting?” Among now-banned pastimes was the 1985 Cannonball Loop, a 60-foot enclosed waterslide in New Jersey with a 360-degree loop that would spit injured children. Many children got stuck and had to be rescued and some suffered injuries such as broken teeth. The Loop closed after a month. Meanwhile a 1950s Atomic Energy Kit – containing uranium ore – allowed children to make their own mini mushroom cloud. Production ceased after a year, not just because of its danger to kids, but because it cost the equivalent of £450 today. Going back to the 1880s, things were far worse for users of the America’s first rollercoaster to go upside down. The Flip Flap Railway opened on Coney Island in the 1880s. It had to travel at 45mph to have even a chance of getting all the way round the loop. Winkler says: “When they went loop de loop, it didn’t quite make it. There were no harnesses, no safety bars. People fell out of the cars. You rode it only once!” Although Winkler believes children today are much safer, they may not be having as much fun. He says: “The younger generation, in my estimation, is missing out on using a lot of their imagination, on flexing those muscles. Everything is done for them now and you can Google yourself into oblivion these days.” Clearly no great fan of our increasingly technology-reliant age, Winkler is deeply suspicious of AI. He says: “Maybe AI is going to be great in some medical discovery, but eventually it is going to turn against the human being. There was a movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the star says to the computer ‘hey would you open the door?’ He says ‘I don’t think so, Dave.’ That is my vision of AI.” Winkler laughs when asked if there was anything really surprising he discovered while filming Hazardous History. He says: “A citrus soda in 1927 had the tagline ‘we will take the edge off’ – because it was laced with lithium!” Despite a huge body of acting work in series such as Law & Order Special Victims Unit and many films, Winkler’s most memorable role was undoubtedly that of Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli – with the unforgettable catchphrase “ayyyy!” He says: “I auditioned for The Fonz twice. I had to get my unibrow plucked, which I remember was very painful. They wanted a big Italian – and they got a short Jew.” Given just a few lines in the first episode, he was such a hit that he became the star – with producers even offering either to give him his own sitcom or to rename the show Happy Days With The Fonz. But Winkler was happy with things just as they were. During his Happy Days run, he turned down the role of Danny Zuko in Grease, which went to John Travolta. He says: “I don’t know if turning down Grease was a great decision, because I went home and had a 7UP and John Travolta went home and bought a plane.” But something wonderful did happen. He met Stacey Weitzman, who he describes as “a beautiful woman”, in a clothes shop, for which she was the publicist, in Beverly Hills. They got married in 1978. He has a stepson, Jed, from Stacey’s previous marriage, and, together they have a son, Max and daughter Zoe – both in their 40s – plus seven grandchildren. After his success as the iconic Fonzie, Winkler struggled to break free from typecasting and worked as a producer. “The 1990s were a lull for me,” he says. But his fortunes changed in 1998 when he made Waterboy with Adam Sandler, starting a successful collaboration and friendship in which they worked together on several movies. “Adam’s my relative now,” he jokes. And in 2003 he played incompetent lawyer Barry Zuckerkorn in Arrested Development, produced by Ron Howard, who had played Richie Cunningham in Happy Days. “I won my Emmy Award for Barry. People talk about that all the time. Everywhere I travel it’s ‘Barry, Barry!’” he says. This came after he had helped finance Ron’s first Hollywood film Night Shift in 1982, in which he played Chuck – and was nominated for a Golden Globe. “Ron and I are to this day very good friends,” says Winkler, godfather to his pal’s four children. “Happy Days gave me happy times and beautiful lifelong friendships.” Now working with Line of Duty creator Jed Mercurio, he says: “He presented me with this idea of a show that’s not a cop show. It’s all I can say!” Although his career is not slowing down, he does notice some signs of ageing. Winkler says: “My knees are very clear on what it means to walk downstairs.” He has spoken of dealing with a lifelong condition too – dyslexia. He says: “I fought through dyslexia – you don’t lose it but you learn to negotiate it. Every young person has a lot of power and you need to channel that in a very positive way, to get where it is you’ve dreamt of being. I am still living the dream I had when I was eight growing up in New York. I never think about being 80. I just think ‘I am having a most wonderful time’.” Hazardous History with Henry Winkler starts on Sky History on November 17 at 10pm and will also be available on History Play.
