Henry Winkler: The Fonz, Career Rejection, and Becoming Himself

34:57It is like putting a puzzle, a jigsaw puzzle together and most of the pieces of the same color and you have to grade the color of your character and you don't know where it is and you find it and you discover it and you look for it and you listen to the director and the producer and the writer and you listen to what the other actors are saying about you and to you and then you you put it together. I'm just in heaven when I'm working. I mean, I was talking to you and your wife last week, obviously a little bit about that. And, you know, she was like, on one hand, I'd like Henry to work less. On the other hand, I don't know that I'd want to be around that Henry who's working less.

35:52But then when I was talking to your daughter Zoe yesterday, she said, honestly, I think my dad believes that if he stops working, he will die. Wow, that's big. I think I have thought not about dying necessarily, because I really love being on this earth. I think about withering. What do you mean by that? just dehydrating into a prune. I think I would just wither in the fall, in the dark, in a cemetery, on a tree, the last leaf blowing. It is interesting because we'll interview folks, you know, generally all of whom have had a lot of success. And there is, I have found a difference in cognition between somebody who's still in the game and somebody who has intentionally stopped.

37:08Sometimes it's not an intentional stop. Sometimes the phone stops ringing. sometimes it's um i don't know what it is but well and if i if i could jump in though right there let's for when the phone stopped ringing for seven years for seven years you were living in what you called the valley of career death you called it probably one of the most painful experiences of your life. Because I wanted, I see myself as Mercury, and I can, and I wanted to find the hole in the wall that I could squeeze through, and I literally, for seven years, could not find the other side of the wall. What was the lowest point in your life during that period?

38:06The first day of those seven years until the last day of those seven years. And what did that look like for you? When I first stopped Happy Days, I was in mental pain. I was in psychic pain because I had a plan. I lived that plan to the nines, but I didn't have a plan B. and i sat in my office at paramount studios after happy days i got scripts that were only fonzie like and i got i didn't know where or what i was going what i would do and i had a family and then Skip Brittenham III, my lawyer called and said I'm going to start a production company for you I said well I can't do that being dyslexic and mostly a failure I know nothing about numbers or business I don't have any idea what it is to produce and he said you'll learn and then I realized you do what you know how to do and there are wonderfully talented people who can do what you don't what you can't what you don't know and I had three partners the last of which I was successful with, but one of the worst human beings that I've ever met on the planet, anywhere I have traveled, I am now 80.

40:07But our first show that we sold to ABC was MacGyver. During that seven-year period, though, ever get low to the point of self-harm or contemplating self-harm? Never self-harm, never giving up. But sitting, listening to music in my office upstairs after I left Paramount,

40:41just having no idea how to get over that wall. What do you think you learned about yourself going through that period? I will tell you, and I've said this a lot. I'm a toy. I have sand at the bottom. I stand about this tall off the ground. You punch it. It goes down. it comes right back to center. Somehow, my genes were good enough to give me the ability to be resilient. You don't know what you can accomplish until you try. Just try. And all of a sudden, what you thought you couldn't do is not as difficult as you thought. Of course, I will not be putting rockets together. But this coming from somebody who was kicked out of acting class at Emerson because you couldn't memorize lines.

41:52No, because I didn't. And even today, you will still audition. So, auditioning. Yeah. There are actors who say, you know, they know me. But then for good reason. You were Henry Winkler. I mean, you look at your body of work. When I sat in that room with the metal chairs up against the wall, the younger actor said, wait a minute, you're Henry Winkler. What are you doing here? I said, hey, I'm looking for a job. You? Because they need to see that you can do it. They don't need to see that you can. They need to. Why do you feel that way? Because they are, I believe, that part of being part of this business, especially on the executive side, is fear.

42:38They make a wrong choice, and it's off the air, and it affects the life of the organization they're with. They're not around long, so it's hard to make a decision. Yes is very difficult to come by. and you feel like the fact that you still audition has increased the number of opportunities without a doubt okay now i must say i'm offered right now bob odenkirk calls me up You know, people call and, okay, I met a wonderful man on Twitter. We watched BritBox during COVID. Jed Mercurio was a doctor, then gave ideas to doctor shows in England, then started to write for doctor shows, then ran them. He had a police procedural on BritBox.

43:53We watched it. Line of duty. I looked him up. I said, I just want to tell you, my wife and I thoroughly are enjoying, because I think it's important to let people know if you've really loved something. He wrote me back. I do Barry years later. Just want you to know, my son and I, Jed Mercurio and his son, watch Barry. Thank you so much. That is great. I then write, at the prodding of my youngest son, Max, and my family, a memoir. Being Henry. I go to England to go on a book tour. Jed Mercurio and his son come and see me in the West End doing a presentation. Months later, he said, you know, I've got this great idea.

44:57There's a real guy. He's a lawyer in New York. He's like the last resort. Would you look at it? And we are now in the process, I don't know what's going to happen, about pins and needles. We're in the process of developing the show. But still pins and needles. Oh my God, I would love to do this guy. Bob Odenkirk was saying he hopes that you will continue to get even kind of deeper and more involved parts. Wow. Because you were obviously, you know, such a fantastic actor. Thank you. Bob, let me just say, thank you so much. What a wonderful thing to say. I wanted to talk to you about dyslexia, though.

45:53Yes. As we see, you're one of many books you've authored. Okay, can I brag? Yes.

46:04Soon, Lynn Oliver and I are a team, and our 41st children's book will come out. It will be the fourth detective duck. this cutie pie little duckling who dreams about being a detective and she's an environmentalist and uh why did you used to pour water on books back in the day oh oh because i can't read okay okay so uh let's uh my my uh example is tale of two cities we're reading it in the 10th grade It's a thick book. The type is very little. I took water, sprinkled it over the outside of the book. It dried, crinkled up, and when I carried it, it looked like I had just beaten it into submission.

47:14And everybody was writing. I don't know what the they were writing in the margins. They wrote things. I wrote nothing. I made little doodles. How did you not realize you were dyslexic until your mid-30s? Because I had never heard of it before. I just, I was told I was stupid. I was told I was lazy. I bought it. How did it impact you in school? I was a class clown. Unintentionally. No, to cover, because I was shamed all the time. That moment when everybody is reading in class and it's almost your turn to read out loud, how can a teacher or a parent see their child is struggling and not go, you know what, let's take a breath here.

48:14Something is wrong. I don't know necessarily what it is, but come on. But I was blamed for being the way I was on purpose. I wanted to make an idiot of myself in class on purpose. How did your parents handle it? I embarrassed my parents. My parents could speak several languages. Dad could speak 11. Yeah. And it was great. I mean, I really do admire. They escaped Nazi Germany. They came to another country. They got to be able to stay here and become citizens. And we were born, and thank God. And I appreciate all of that. I really, and I mean appreciate in the truest sense of the word. but as human beings, I was a failure.

49:12They let me know it. How? They told me. I was grounded. I had to sit at my desk as if I was going to get it. Then you find out dyslexia is hereditary. So the very people who are putting me down gave it to me. Did you ever talk to them about that? Oh, no, that was an impossibility. Okay. I started a sentence, maybe I was 23. Dad, I just want you to know, it's really difficult to have a conversation with you. and then it started a barrage of oh yeah then everything i do for you and it's so difficult to talk to me you know what you owe me so much and i went check please thank you so much for this conversation i'll hold it in my heart forever explain why you'd fantasize uh while you were at school that was a joke by London Lee and I I absorbed it but not as a joke to you like not as a joke you actually wished it was reality I thought hey he had the same problem and the joke was I'm sitting in class and I'm fantasizing I'm gonna go home I'm gonna open up the apartment door and my parents had moved and left no forwarding address.

50:49And I swear I thought it out. I would have worked it out. I would have figured out how to eat, how to get ready, how to do things, how to... I never thought about paying rent, but I figured out I could survive. Is it true that every night before you'd go to bed, you'd think about how one day you will be a different kind of parent? I thought about being a different parent. I thought about that I would be an actor. And everybody poo-pooed it. And I fantasized, dreamt, sometimes to the point where my heart would beat so fast I couldn't fall asleep because I was just filled with the need to be an actor.

51:41and then I would think up stunts and then if I wasn't asleep and I made the mistake of making noise when my mother opened the door and I answered her, she had a hairbrush and then I was spanked because I was still up. Was your dad physically abusive? Yes. Well, yeah, yes. Yeah, I said something to him I thought was a joke and we were waiting for the elevator in the hallway of the building and then right behind the elevator were stairs that you went up and I ran up the stairs and he chased me and caught me. Nationwide is so much more than a great insurance company. They're one of America's largest financial services companies just like I'm so much more than quarterback Peyton Manning.

52:39I'm also Peyton Manning. Insurance and financial services together, it's a masterpiece. Peyton Manning does it again. For your insurance and financial needs, Nationwide is on your side. Nationwide Investment Services Corporation, Ember Finra, Columbus, Ohio. There is so much NFL on ESPN right now. Monday Night Football, plus pregame and postgame. NFL Live, NFL Primetime. Everything you need to stay on top of every game, every week. Unbelievable. And now NFL Network is on the ESPN app. More football, more coverage, more ways to watch. Football's on, all season long, on ESPN and streaming on the ESPN app.

53:30Yeah. You allude to this in your book, but to what do you attribute the difference in experience your sister had with your parents? I don't know. Or at least how she views that. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Because you eulogized your mom and she came. She said, what house were you brought up in? Right. And you're thinking. I'm thinking I don't know where I got the nerve to tell the truth at the funeral when you're supposed to, you know, say wonderful things. What did you say? I don't remember what I said. I took my parents off as if they were clothes that were not salvageable. Have you ever thought about this?

54:25Like if not for the way they treated you, do you wonder if you would have? Yes. And your view is what on that front? If I didn't have dyslexia, maybe I wouldn't have fought so hard to get where I am at this moment so I could sit opposite you in this conversation. Maybe I would have done something else. In what ways would you say the Holocaust shaped your life? Not only did the Holocaust happen, and do I have documentation that my entire family was taken, the fact that people deny it is not as shocking as the terror and the horror of human-unhuman, but it's close. How did your parents escape? My parents had a six-week work visa and were able to leave Germany for six weeks to come to New York for business.

55:39My father never told my mother that he was really thinking of leaving for good. he took my mother's jewelry and his mother's jewelry, or pieces of it, melted down a box of chocolate and poured the liquid chocolate over each piece of jewelry. It looked like turtles, you know, the chocolate with nuts. Put it back in the box, let it dry, put the box under his arm, and when the Nazis said, are you taking anything of value? He said, open my bags. I have nothing. He pawned the jewelry, was able, now this is to be admired, was able to start the business, the lumber business, importing and exporting wood, bought back the jewelry, and I gave our son the pocket watch that was smuggled out of Germany in chocolate.

56:50Now, in my backyard, we have a spider plant. Tante Anna was smuggled out of Germany in a coffin. At her feet was a spider plant. The spider plant just rejuvenates all the time. I mean it was like a tremendous metaphor for the wherewithal that these people had. Everybody got a cutting of the spider plant. Grew up with it on the windowsill. When I moved out here, took my cuttings. And there's now in each of the children's backyard and in pots here and in the ground. All from the same spider plant that escaped Germany in a coffin with Tante Anna. And it should be acknowledged just how close they were to not making it out?

57:54Because, correct me if I'm wrong, your dad's brother stayed just a day longer because he needed to pick up a jacket from the tailor? Yes, he did. He had his tuxedo was being made at the tailor at that time, and he was supposed to escape by submarine, I believe, as I recollect. But he said, yeah, I'm going to stay one more day and get the tuxedo. And then that night they came and took him. I never met him, but I did an incredible show called Better Late Than Never, where I traveled the world with George Foreman, bless his soul, the heavyweight champion of the world, Bill Shatner, and Terry Bradshaw.

58:40And in Berlin, when we were all in Berlin, we went on these adventures, and the adventure was to find my roots. And we went to the house where Helmut and Harry, my father, lived. And in front was a silver toe stone that had his name, birth date, when he was taken, what camp he went to, and that he lived here. And that is how I met my uncle. And I've been cold as ice about my family, not asking a lot of questions. And when I saw that square, I started to cry uncontrollably. What was it about that that finally kind of impacted you so much? I don't know. The reality of it, the truth of it, the human being of it.

59:56I have no idea, but I was standing there with Terry, George, and Bill. The lie that you alluded to that your dad told your mom. you know I was thinking kind of nervous breakdown I was thinking about it last night though and I'm like you know on one hand you you would think your dad would be widely commended for choosing to get the family out when he did but what was it about that that she could never quite sure never saw her family again that she didn't say goodbye she said yeah I'll see you again I'll see you and we're coming back and she never went back and she was very family oriented uh apparently i'm telling you i did not ask a lot of questions you regret did not i'm i was just thinking about that this second do i regret that i don't know i don't know maybe i wish i knew a little bit more but I didn't want to be in a conversation with them because it never ended well.

1:01:15So I just shut down. Do you know? The kernel of Henry was like Chernobyl with layers of cement, I think, when I was six. and now I've finally maybe started 10 years ago to take a jackhammer to that encased little boy. Truly. It's not even made up to sound great. I mean, that's really how I grew up. And I'm going to ask you about that, But what made you think recently about if your dad had another family?

1:02:08Oh, you mean if he had another family in another? Oh, because in a lot of the correspondence were letters from people at the office saying, where are you? I need you to come back now.

1:02:31And it might have dawned on me that he could very well be in Tecosogalpa, in Guatemala, he was not just having a banana in a hammock. You think that was the case? I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. But there were pleas in this letter. We need you to come back. We need some bills to be paid. Where are you? You mentioned kind of taking the jackhammer to your childhood and really just kind of over the past decade. How do you think therapy impacted how you now view your parents? I haven't. I'm just maybe getting to my parents. Really? But I had to get so much junk. You know, I used to have an image when I was younger that I was locked inside and all the muscle and the veins and the nerve endings were all like a netting.

1:03:51and I couldn't come up for air. I couldn't get out of my own self. And it took me a while to cut all that. And when I speak, I say that I tried to pull myself up into the sun And I kept falling back, and I finally figured out the code to getting into the sun. And it's the same image, just spoken differently, than the one being under this net of all my garbage. And I want to ask you about the code, to use your words, the code of being able to get to the sun. But to what extent first do you think that gets you to a place of forgiveness towards them? What gets me there? Do you think you get to a place of being able to forgive your parents?

1:04:56I think I have over the while forgiven. Really? I do have, I still have. Look, this is what I think and is what I thought as a parent. because I said to Stacy, I'm going to be a different parent than my parents were. All of that other stuff, okay. Not okay, but it is. But when you see your child and your child is having a problem, you don't call them Domo Hunt, stupid dog. You go, ooh, wait a minute. There's a problem here. I don't know what it is. But let's see, at least make you feel better so that you're not floundering all the time and feeling less than and feeling like a failure.

1:06:03That is still, to me, unforgivable. What was involved on your end in kind of cracking that code to get to the sun? I have a doctor that I've talked to, that I talk to.

1:06:21And I've said this a million times. If I were to give this woman a gift, it would have to be the size of a skyscraper.

1:06:34because you can't ask questions about her. I once said many years ago, do you have children? And she said, how would that help you? And I went, okay, okay. And but she is so insightful. She knows the human condition because, as we talked about before, the people that you interviewed, all of the idiosyncratic differences, take them away. We are the same. We are the same. and she knows the human condition, at least for me, in a very powerful, and I thank the universe, I thank God every day that I met her. What made you finally decide to start to go at, I think, 70 years old? About 10 years ago, maybe 12 years ago, I was pretty good at either figuring things out or making it or smoothing things out in my mind or rationalizing.

1:08:05And I just couldn't do it anymore. And that was affecting you how? It affected me in that I could no longer, I was now treading water. I was going sideways. I was not being able to just, oh, well, okay, I'll move that aside and I'll just move forward. I needed to now empty myself out of all of the rancid garbage I had allowed to infiltrate. And I think your wife had made the comment that she wasn't being let in in the way that she was. I didn't let anybody in. I let my pets in. I let my children in. I was, I believe that I did something that I never had, which was I listened. And no matter what was said, no matter how long it took to say it, I listened to my children.

1:09:08I always stopped and I went, oh, okay, what? Or, oh, I didn't mean to answer you like that. I'm going to reel it back in. I'm going to start again. Or, oh, I know, I feel it right now. I'm not, I cannot hear you. So come back in 10 minutes. And my kids got so good at coming in and going, I'll be back. Thank you. Or, hi, listen, I really got a problem. I want to talk to you. They, you just know. They knew. All three of them. Jed, Zoe, and Max. And the goal with therapy was to have that? The goal, I didn't know what the goal was. I just knew I needed a goal and I was going to find it. So I talked to Zoe as well as your close buddy Forever, Dr.

1:10:05Dines. Yeah. And I brought up therapy to them. And here's what each of them said about you having gone through it. Zoe said. I'm so interested to hear this now. You don't like confrontation. This is from your daughter Zoe. But therapy has helped with that. Yes. And that you have a newfound confidence. Yes. Dr. Dine said you're now much more expressive, able to listen without an internal voice blocking out what you're hearing. Wow. Much more relaxed, present, more of a calmness and self-respect. Wow. It's all true. I mean, I'm aware of that being the case. Really? Yeah. How do you notice that great of change in yourself?

1:10:55You can listen, waiting to hear, where do I fit in, what maybe I have to add. Or you can listen and just listen. And not have to throw your point of view in unless it's asked for. You don't have to be an active participant every time you listen. You can literally wait. If they don't ask, you have nothing to say. What's your view on why you were doing that before? Because I was out of balance. I was out of my f***ing mind. Not anymore. I'm getting there. Okay, so here is, and I've said my image. I was Swiss cheese. I was filled with holes. And I had to constantly be anxious about stepping in one of those holes.

1:12:07And my job is to become a chunk of cheddar, not a hole in sight. Although in fairness, you could make the strong argument we're all that way. I don't care. And we're all living life for the first time. But therapy is such that everybody benefits from having that as a tool. They do. Right. If you find the right person. The first person I ever went to was, I don't know. Gave you a script to read. No, asked me if I would read a script. and I got up and left. I want to talk to you about money. Money. Money. You've said - The beginning of my existence. Well, you have said you have an idiosyncratic relationship with money.

1:12:57That's a mild way to say it. Okay, explain that. Money makes me crazy. You never think, you always think you're going to run out and then you can't take care of your responsibility. and you've had fabulous success hey hey hey even today it will get to you doesn't matter today yeah today half an hour before we uh sat down uh you know i um we did a little renovation in the house it got a little away from me got a little bit away from you meaning costs escalate as they They always do. They say, well, what about if we do that? And I go, okay, oh, fine. Yeah, you know, that sounds right. And then boom.

1:13:41And then, oh, you know what? I'm just seeing this. Could we do it? Yeah. And boom. And pretty much boom is like boom.

1:13:52And I'm trying to get better. I'm trying. But I still am plagued by running out, not having, not being able to take care of.

1:14:20Yeah. Oh, God. It just, it is so uncomfortable. Oh, my God. But you have to logically, in those situations now, take a step back and recognize, I mean, you've had plenty of financial success. Yes. There's probably no connectivity to the feelings and the reality of where you're actually at fiscally. I think you've probably said it. I think I could pay you as a psychologist, but there is no connective tissue between the reality and what I live in my head. You were obsessed, though, from a very early age of not spending a penny more than you needed to. I am very...

1:15:13In structure comes freedom. How well do you remember the bar mitzvah money conversation? with your dad.

1:15:24We're in my, we lived above our means. My father had a summer home, an hour outside of New York City. I got cash and I got bonds and put them in the bank. And my father, because he, I guess spent like it was, like he was drunk, came to me and said, I need your bar mitzvah money. I said, oh, okay. I need it. All right. Will you pay me back? When can you... Pay you back? I don't have to pay you back. After everything I've given you, you give me this money. I need this money. Nationwide is so much more than a great insurance company. They're one of America's largest financial services companies, just like I'm so much more than quarterback Peyton Manning.

1:16:28I'm also Peyton Manning. Insurance and financial services together, it's a masterpiece. Peyton Manning does it again. For your insurance and financial needs, Nationwide is on your side. Nationwide Investment Services Corporation, Ember FINRA, Columbus, Ohio. There is so much NFL on ESPN right now. Monday night football, plus pregame and postgame. NFL Live, NFL Primetime. Everything you need to stay on top of every game, every week. Unbelievable. And now NFL Network is on the ESPN app. More football, more coverage, more ways to watch. Football's on, all season long, on ESPN and streaming on the ESPN app.

1:17:29Yeah. Second floor, outside his bedroom, in our house, in Mayo Pack. When I was 13. But who remembers? Well, it's still, I'm watching your eyes as you're talking about it. You still feel it. Oh, it was.

1:17:53And maybe it was just the tone. But I couldn't believe that I was going to give him this money. And I just assumed he would want to give it back to me. It was my gift for my 13th birthday. Your daughter Zoe was telling me how you and your wife Stacy have instilled in all of your kids, there will be no inheritance. Why? I don't know. I have no idea where that came from. I'm telling you the truth. It is the first time I'm hearing of that because on the day that we had the estate planning meeting, I was called about Barry. So I don't forget that. Right. She brought up the estate planning meeting, though, too.

1:18:55I understand that, but I don't know what she—honest to God. But my wife made it very clear that Zoe is in charge of my wife's, you know, clothing and jewelry and everything. And then she will dispense it. And I don't know what, but it's a third, a third and a third. Jed came with the marriage. He's been with me and us since he was four. than Zoe, than Max? They are our children. So what's funny is I thought there was connectivity to that and just how you were raised and wanting to... It's been clear through the research that you were beyond generous family and everybody kind of in your orbit, but I thought there was something there on principle that...

1:19:52That is the strangest thing I ever heard. But Zozo, I promise you, you know, I believe that there will be at least$350 left. And then you guys can just divide that amongst yourselves. She didn't say that you guys have said you were going to just spend it all. I don't know that that actually came out of... That might be another member of the family who actually said that, but I don't know that that came out of my mouth. I want to talk about acting and some of the luminaries you've crossed paths with over the years. But you wrote in your memoir, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Thank you. To this minute, I still live with shame when I think about all the well-known actors I've worked with, failing to do justice to the scenes I did with them.

1:20:51that up to a point. I could not have done Barry if I did not have therapy. It opened me up, you know, in the way that both Zoe and Frank... Why do you think you couldn't have done it, though? I couldn't because I didn't have a connection to the depth. I had the depth in there somewhere. I just, I was, it was like two different, you know, planes going on. And what did the therapy allow you to unlock professionally? Allowed me to feel and breathe, see and hear, be in the moment I now know, especially in this moment, in 2026, the most important thing that we can do is to be in the moment because it is so untenable.

1:21:56It is so scary at this moment. We have no idea. The footing is like quicksand. It feels like that to me. In my whole life, wars and everything, It just feels like being in the moment. And I was able now, I'm able now, not was, I am. Able now to be more in the moment than ever in my entire lifetime. Which has made you a better actor. Much better actor. When I was doing the Fonz, I changed the voice and it unleashed me. I was able to go to places in my imagination that I didn't have the confidence, I didn't have the wherewithal to go. When I was just being straight, I was stilted. I was passable.

1:23:12I want to run through some different names you've crossed paths with over the years, some of whom you've worked with. But I wanted to start with a moment that I know has been covered ad nauseum, but I think I find admittedly interesting because profiled now, both of you before, and you're both regarded as two of the nicest men in Hollywood. But I wanted to lead into that by talking about Jeffrey Katzenberg and when he first approached you about Turner and Hooch and then how it ultimately ended.

1:23:49I'm walking in the original Barneys, 17th Street, 7th Avenue. This woman comes, approaches me in a gray uniform, one of the security. Mr. Winkler, there's a phone call for you. In an apartment store?

1:24:13I go, it's Jeffrey Katzenberg. He said, I would like you to... Who is as big as it gets. He's a big guy. Now, I've known him since he was at the beginning of his executive career at Paramount under Michael Eisner. He was in politics before that. And he said, I'd like you to direct Turner and Hooch. I said, you know, there's another movie called Stella, and I think I'm more suited for that. He said, no, I'd like you to direct Turner and Hooch.

1:24:51And I thought, okay, so here is a lesson. When your instinct says, uh-oh, danger, warning sign, You do not question your tummy. You can question your brain, but never your tummy. I went completely against my tummy. And it hit me in the face with a two by four. How so? Okay. I now meet the puppies. I meet Turner and his friends, brothers, sisters, I don't know. But they were all little puppies. and we bond, we're hugging, and they have more slobber than you can ever imagine. It is, I think, the same dog, the bull mastiff, that Sly Stallone arrived in Hollywood with in the back of his car. Slobber to the point of filling a tub.

1:25:57And they're all learning a different trick. They can all do a trick. And we're doing, we're doing pre-production. I think 11 weeks of pre-production. So that the dogs can grow and become Turner. Hooch. Hooch.

1:26:24And I meet with Tom. and we audition Tom Hanks Tom Hanks and we we audition women together and he settles on Mayor Winningham who's a very good actress actually and everybody else he but he has a connection a an electricity with mayor and I guess at At that time, being insecure, I talked too much. And I gave them direction, what I thought was my job. And I wanted to do it over again. And apparently that pissed them off. And in 13 days of filming, I'm called into Jeff Katzenberg's office and he said, it's not in the dailies. Now, I have been fired before, years ago, when I just left the Yale Repertory Theater to go to the Arena Stage Theater in Washington, D.C.

1:27:40And the director said, I said, oh, I've solved the monologue in the third act. He said, I'm letting you go. and your mind turns into cream cheese and you don't quite hear it's like in a fog I didn't quite hear Jeffrey Katzenberg it's not in the Danish I then go to the set I get my things I drive home I'm fired as a director How do you handle it? I don't handle it well. I'm devastated. Jim Wyatt was my agent at William Morris at that time. Who was another titan. Calls me up immediately, says, we're going to lunch. You've got to get out there. You've got to be seen. I go, okay. I didn't even have an appetite.

1:28:32I know you guys have crossed paths since, and obviously everything's fine. But what do you think was the genesis of any negative feelings the two of you have had about one another over the years? I don't know, because, you know, when Tom, before he was a movie star, was on Happy Days. He was a guest star in Happy Days. And I don't know. We did a retrospective of Happy Days, and we wanted 60 seconds of Tom Hanks in his episode, and we did not get permission for that. What's your perspective on it? I am still working on my perspective. What does that mean? I think his wife, Rita, was also a guest on Happy Days in the beginning.

1:29:21You think that relationship ever repairs itself? Sure. By the way, you still have the signed plastic. I do. What is it, a plane? It was a model plane that while we were having meetings, he built a plastic Piper Cub or something like that. Yeah. You and Adam Sandler, you connected over his mention of you in the Hanukkah song. How about when you went over to his place for basketball? Okay. I call him up. My son, Jed, at that time is a manager. He's working at Brillstein Gray, a very big firm. And he gets me Adam's phone number. And I call Adam, who is a part of that group, I think. And I say, thank you for including me in the Hanukkah song.

1:30:19And then he said, oh, would you come to my house on Sunday? We play basketball. I said, I don't play basketball. He said, don't worry about it. Just come. I come and he shows me in a glass cabinet an 8-track of Happy Days music. And I sign it. Brad Pitt is there. Jim Carrey is there. I forget who else was there because I was so dazzled by. And I, being my old self, am so uncomfortable and so awkward.

1:31:04So I'm there and that was that. And then I saw Brad Pitt many times after that who was so warm and wonderful. And at an award show he was wearing this beautiful long cashmere coat on the red carpet. And I said, oh my God, I'm going to be like everybody else. I'm just going to get my wife and I'm going to take a picture. And he stood there and waited. And I got my wife, Stacy, and she loves him. And I took a picture of them. And of course, the lighting was bad. It was backlighting. So it's not the greatest picture, but there it is. You have it framed somewhere? I don't have it framed. I don't have it framed.

1:31:49How about when Portia de Rossi once confided in you? We're doing Arrested Development. We're in the makeup chair. I have a lovely relationship with this gorgeous woman who said, I met the love of my life last night. No kidding. Yes, but you can't say anything. So this is like many, many years later, I guess I can say she met Ellen. And the rest is history. But she was like in that euphoria of love, of being smitten. It was wonderful. How about fondest memory with Robin Williams? Robin Williams. One of the first things I guess he ever did was the character on Happy Days. very quiet, very shy, picked up a script, and I realized, know your lines so that you don't mess up and stay out of his way because you will never be able to stand toe-to-toe with this genius.

1:33:08Just be there. It was, I don't know what. Even then? Even the moment he opened his mouth with the script, it was like, I don't know, like a volcano, like an explosion. What most stands out from working with Katherine Hepburn? That I worked with Katherine Hepburn. And then we were talking and I said, this was at the end of her career. I think this was the last project, but it was Katharine Hepburn and The Philadelphia Story, all of the movies that she made, but like The Philadelphia Story is one of the great rom-coms of all history of film. How well do you remember meeting Frank Sinatra? Frank Sinatra.

1:34:11I meet him backstage. He goes, I'm so happy to meet you. I introduce him to an entourage of people, Stacy and Ron Howard and Ron Howard's wife and other human beings. And after it's over, we go back and he remembers everybody's name and says goodbye. Now I'm 14 years old. I just start smoking regular Kents that are like toothpicks. They are the smallest cigarette ever known. I'm blowing them out the window writing bad poetry to Jill, who lives across the lake in Mayo Pack, listening to in the wee small hours of the morning, over and over again. there was this young lady in college, Susie. I wrote her during the school year 150 letters in order to get how I felt exactly on paper.

1:35:19Not being able to spell. You were known to write poetry to love interests for quite a few years. Bad, bad, bad. You ever write one to Lois? Lois. Came home with you one day on the bus? No, I wrote her nothing. I wrote her nothing because we're in, this is, I passed geometry. And this woman said, want me to come home with you? The same summer, 1963, August. I was going to road school in New York City, taking geometry for the fourth year. She comes home. She's natural. She is comfortable. She gets undressed. I go behind my drapes, and I get undressed. And I fumble with a Trojan.

1:36:26and I think I'm starting to make love to her and I climax and start laughing

1:36:37because I never quite got to be where I needed to be. So I'm still a virgin. The piece of the story that I was confused by was the stopping midway through to hop on the phone with your sister. I don't remember that. What did I do? She called. I said, probably I can't talk to you now. But I was dutiful to take the ringing phone. More awkward encounter, Mick Jagger or Paul McCartney? Mick Jagger, for sure. Really? Yeah. I met Mick Jagger twice. He was the concert I saw just before getting on the plane. I was sitting, I think, next to God in the Madison Square Garden. I could not be any higher. He turns around.

1:37:27He looks in the direction. Like I know now, you look in the direction. You can't see anybody. I, he's so powerful, I think he's looking directly at me. I saw him in a wonderful sushi restaurant a few years ago. And I went up to him, and I am tongue-tied with musicians. And I went, hi, Mick. And this is what he did. He's talking to his girlfriend, Henry. And that's it. And I go, I'm just going to become so small that you will not be able to see me standing here, and I will slink away. And as I pass, there are businessmen having lunch. And they went, you just talked to Mick Jagger. Yes, I did. And I left the restaurant and gunned my car down to Wilshire Boulevard.

1:38:40That was it. Henry?

1:38:47Now, yeah. I'm very bad with musicians in being any kind of close to being human. Or maybe you just think you're bad. No, no, no. I think I'm true. I want to wrap by talking about family.

1:39:11First, why do you think Ron Howard asked you to be a godfather to his kids? I don't know. But what? At that time, I didn't even question it. He came to Stacey and I and he said, or he came to me, Stacey and me. And he said, look, Cheryl and Ron said, we're going to move to the east. If God forbid anything happens to us, will you take all of the children? I thought, oh, do I have room? It doesn't matter. We'll add on. I'll just, I'll build a tent. Yes, we will. Of course we will. And then Bryce was my actual goddaughter. And I took her out to lunch when I was doing a play with John Ritter. She was at the Tisch School of Drama along with John Ritter's son, Jason.

1:40:08And she said, I don't know how to do this, but there's a guy I need. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to get his eyes. I said, Bryce, just breathe in front of him. He'll notice. You're beautiful and powerful. And they have two children. What does the relationship with Ron mean to you? Ron is... And why do you think it's lasted as long as it has? He is from a family that left the farm in Oklahoma. They went to New York City. His father was in Broadway plays. His mom is an actress. They drive across the country. They have two children. Two children become actors.

1:41:03I am a short Jew from New York City. I get on a plane at 10 o 'clock in the morning, come to California. within two weeks I get a small role on this part, on this show, Happy Days. From the minute I meet him, from the minute I'm in his presence, I realize this is an old soul, this is a really wise 18-year-old, I am 27. and we are connected unexplainedly. There's a thread that is connecting us from the minute we meet. And the rest is history. And the rest is history, and he's my good friend, and I love him. He's like my son or brother or something. Look, we've obviously jumped around to kind of all different parts of your life over these couple hours.

1:42:09And I've had the good fortune of now talking to Stacey as well as, you know, Zoe, among others. You know, it's not lost on me, though, that what we have not addressed is kind of the role of being a father and being a husband, which I know to you are your kind of two most important priorities. And I just wonder if I could be a father right away. I had to learn to be a husband. I was so closed off, as we talked about before. I didn't understand what it meant to be a husband. I knew I had to earn money. I knew I had to put bread on the table. I knew I had to have shelter. I had to pay for school.

1:43:05I had to pick them up from school. But the dynamic, the human dynamic inside of being a partner, I had no idea. what it was like to be a partner. And I have learned what it was like to create a we instead of a me and you. Which is what?

1:43:44Being completely open to seeing who is in front of you, how they live, what do they need to live, how can you help them live, how can you give up in order to allow them to enjoy whatever that moment is they need, I think. And maybe I'm only saying half of it. Maybe I'm only saying a quarter of it. I don't know. But that's what I'm learning. That's what I'm learning and I enjoy it.

1:44:27There's a freedom to being, you know, and not so worried about every detail. And, whew, whew, how am I being, okay. I've said this before, but my brain is soldered shut like an oil can. You know how you pour, like, cream into your coffee, and it swirls and makes a different color, and ultimately ends up a completely different color? I was pouring information, experiences into my brain. No seepage. No changing, swirling. No, I was just soldered from the experience of living. And now that can cover is starting to pry itself loose. And you've been married how long? 48 years. And you have how many kids?

1:45:46I have three wonderful children, Jed, Zoe, and Max, and we have seven grandchildren. Oh, my God. Each one is a wonder. Each one is different. from the bottom to the top. Matilda, Frankie, Gus was just nine. Jules is going to be 11. Lulu, Ace, India. They're all different and just joyful. Impressive you were able to run off that list as quickly as you did. Thank you for doing this, sir. You bet. What a pleasure. Thanks for listening to this week's podcast. Don't forget to leave a rating and review. And for more in-depth interviews, visit GrahamBensinger.com.