EXCLUSIVE: Ayyyy! Fonz Icon Henry Winkler Reveals How ALL His Dreams Came True and Why He's 'Luckiest Guy Alive'
Fonz icon Henry Winkler shared how all his dreams came true and why he feels like the luckiest guy alive.
July 16 2025, Published 7:30 a.m. ET
To an older generation, Happy Days star Henry Winkler will always be Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli, the coolest greaser on TV, but now, 41 years after the series ended, he tells a funny story about his grandson Ace, who dressed up as Fonzie for Halloween and didn't even realize his "Pop-Pop" had played him.
"I'm not aware if they know," Winkler, 79, said. But it doesn't bother him at all. In fact, RadarOnline.com can reveal, when he shot to success on the show, he never struggled with fame at all.
"I was comfortable from the beginning," he said. "I don't know why. Mainly, I think, because of the lack of self. When people were talking to me, I kept looking over my shoulder to see who they were talking to because I couldn't believe they meant me."
Ron Howard and Don Most still keep in touch with Henry Winkler.
As a child, Winkler struggled with dyslexia, a condition his parents didn't understand and assumed he wasn't trying hard enough.
"I grew up with very, very strong and severe [parents]. They did not hear, or they did not listen. They did not see who was standing in front of them. It took me a long while to unravel all of the mechanisms I put into place to survive that.
"When I married Stacey [Weitzman in 1978], I said: 'I'm going to be a different parent.' I believe a heard child is a powerful child. I had no power."
Winkler said the cast of Happy Days, which includes Ron Howard, Anson Williams, and Don Most, are still pals.
Stacey Weitzman inspired Winkler's vow to parent with empathy.
"We're all close," he revealed. "We see each other, we text."
The actor took up a second career when he started writing children's books, a series called Hank Zipzer, based on his experiences with dyslexia. Because of his reading problems, he works with coauthor Lin Oliver.
He explained: "She types. I talk. She types. I wait. She reads it back to me. We argue over every word. But 41 novels later, it works."
His advice to the little boys who read his books? "Whatever your major fear is, it is worse in your mind than it is in reality. You can literally accomplish what it is you dream about."
Lin Oliver helped turn Winkler's dyslexia into 41 bestselling books.
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He also hosts and is an executive producer of the new History Channel series Hazardous History, which reveals little-known facts from the past.
And although he's been a star for decades, Winkler said he's most proud of his family – he and Stacey have three children and six grandkids.
"And the books," he added. "Never in my life did I imagine that I could be an author, multiple times. It started as a time filler, and all of a sudden it's a new profession."
