Henry Winkler Then and Now: From Fonzie to Barry at 81

Henry Winkler is still the face most viewers picture when they hear the name Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli, the leather-jacketed star of ABC's Happy Days. But his career began years before that jacket and kept going for decades after it. Winkler turned 81 on October 30, 2026, and his path runs from Yale stage training to sitcom stardom to an Emmy-winning turn on HBO's Barry. It is a clear case of a breakout role becoming one chapter in a much longer story.

Where did Henry Winkler start?

Winkler was born on October 30, 1945, in New York City. He studied theater at Emerson College and then at the Yale School of Drama, where he earned his Master of Fine Arts in 1970. Even his Yale audition showed a gift for thinking on his feet: he forgot the Shakespearean monologue he had prepared, improvised instead, and was still admitted. He later credited his time with the Yale Repertory Theatre as critical to his success.

At Yale, he appeared in productions including The Government Inspector, Don Juan, Endgame and The Physicists. After graduating, he joined the Yale Repertory Theatre company for the 1970-71 season. He then moved into New York auditions, commercials and small acting jobs. In 1973, he appeared on Broadway as "John" in 42 Seconds from Broadway, and he also had parts in the films The Lords of Flatbush and Crazy Joe.

That same year, his agent urged him to try California. In September 1973, Winkler and his Lords of Flatbush co-star Perry King traveled to Los Angeles. After five days of auditions, he landed a small part in the Mary Tyler Moore Show episode "The Dinner Party." The trip put him in the right city at the right moment for the role that would change his life.

How did Henry Winkler become Fonzie?

During his second week in Los Angeles, Winkler auditioned for the part of Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli. He came back for a second reading in costume and was offered the role on his birthday. Happy Days, created by Garry Marshall, premiered on ABC on January 15, 1974. It followed teenager Richie Cunningham, played by Ron Howard, along with his family and friends in 1950s and early 1960s Milwaukee. The series grew out of a pilot segment on Love, American Style and opened to mixed reviews.

Winkler brought his own ideas to the character from the first episode. He chose not to chew gum or roll a pack of cigarettes in his sleeve, as actors usually did with that kind of role. When producers told him the script required Fonzie to comb his hair, he stood at the mirror and motioned in a way that suggested he didn't need to, because his hair was already perfect. That small gesture became the moment that defined the character.

The famous jacket took a while to arrive. ABC executives did not want Fonzie in leather, because they felt it suggested a criminal, so he wore a windbreaker during the first season. Garry Marshall found a compromise: Fonzie could wear leather in scenes with his motorcycle. Marshall then made sure the motorcycle was written into every scene. In reality, Winkler did not know how to ride one, and he never rode it during the series.

Why did Happy Days become a phenomenon?

When ratings slipped during the second season, Marshall retooled the series. The new version leaned into broader comedy and put the spotlight on Fonzie, a character who had begun as a secondary role. Fonzie moved to front billing, and by the middle of the second season he was the central figure in the Christmas episode "Guess Who's Coming to Christmas." After the changes, Happy Days became the No. 1 program on television in the 1976-77 season, and Fonzie became one of the most merchandised characters of the 1970s.

At the height of his popularity, Winkler said he was receiving 50,000 fan letters a week. Fonzie's leather jacket was later donated to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. The series also produced spin-offs including Laverne & Shirley and Mork & Mindy. Winkler stayed through the final episode in July 1984, a run of 255 half-hour episodes over 11 seasons. He earned three Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for the role. Outside the show, he also earned Golden Globe nominations for the films Heroes (1977) and Night Shift (1982).

What did Winkler do behind the camera?

Even while Fonzie was everywhere, Winkler was building a second career as a producer. In 1976, he founded Fair Dinkum Productions. In 1978, he was executive producer and host of the 50-minute television version of Who Are the DeBolts? And Where Did They Get Nineteen Kids?, which received an Emmy nomination. He executive produced the ABC Afterschool Special Run, Don't Walk in 1981, and he directed the 13th episode of the Happy Days spin-off Joanie Loves Chachi.

After Happy Days ended, Winkler found himself typecast and had trouble landing acting roles until 1991. He stayed busy through his production company, which expanded with offshoots including Monument Pictures and J-Z Productions. He directed the feature films Memories of Me (1988) and Cop and a Half (1993). He was also an executive producer of the original MacGyver, along with The Sure Thing, Dead Man's Gun, Sightings, So Weird and a revamped version of The Hollywood Squares.

How did Winkler reinvent himself as an actor?

Winkler returned to acting in the early 1990s with the television film Absolute Strangers (1991) and the short-lived series Monty (1994), which featured a young David Schwimmer. He also appeared in the TV movie One Christmas in 1994. In 1996, he played Principal Arthur Himbry in his friend Wes Craven's Scream. The role was uncredited because the producers worried audiences would see only the Fonz. After the screening, he received positive feedback for the part.

More acclaimed work followed. In 2000, he earned a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for The Practice. In 2003, he played Stanley Yelnats III in the film Holes. A friendship with Adam Sandler, which began after Sandler's 1994 "The Chanukah Song," led to roles in The Waterboy and Click. Winkler also directed John Ritter in the TV movie A Smoky Mountain Christmas (1986) and later co-starred with him in The Only Way Out (1993). In 1999, he returned to Broadway in Neil Simon's The Dinner Party.

How did Arrested Development and Barry change his career?

In 2003, Mitch Hurwitz cast Winkler as the hapless lawyer Barry Zuckerkorn on Fox's Arrested Development. The part was planned for a single episode, but he kept coming back through the original three seasons and the later Netflix seasons in 2013 and 2018. He won a Gold Derby Award for Comedy Guest Actor in 2004, and in 2014 he shared a Screen Actors Guild ensemble nomination with the cast.

Then came Barry. Creators Bill Hader and Alec Berg wanted Winkler for Gene Cousineau, a Los Angeles acting teacher, and work on the first season began in 2016. The character was first written as darker and colder, but it grew warmer and more affectionate as Winkler brought his own experience to it. In 2018, he won the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series, his third Emmy overall. He also won Critics' Choice Television Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 2019 and 2023, and received three Primetime Emmy nominations, three Golden Globe nominations and four Screen Actors Guild nominations for the role. Barry ran on HBO from 2018 to 2023.

What is Henry Winkler doing now?

Winkler has stayed busy across formats. He was part of the travel series Better Late Than Never from 2016 to 2018 and voiced a character in the animated series Monsters at Work from 2021 to 2024. He appeared in Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch (2021) and made a cameo in Black Adam (2022). He also co-wrote the Hank Zipzer children's books with Lin Oliver, published from 2003 to 2010. His accolades now include three Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards. In 2025, he hosted Hazardous History with Henry Winkler on the History Channel, and he was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame. In December 2025, he was a guest narrator at Disney's Candlelight Processional at Walt Disney World.

His recent public moments still link back to Happy Days. On October 25, 2026, he posted a birthday tribute on X to Marion Ross, who played Marion Cunningham, and called her "an extraordinary acting partner." Five days later, he turned 81. More than four decades after he received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1981, the Fonz remains one of television's most recognizable characters. The actor behind him has spent the years since proving he is much more than one role.

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Timeline

• **Oct. 30, 1945:** Henry Winkler is born in New York City.
• **1970:** He earns a Master of Fine Arts from the Yale School of Drama.
• **Sept. 1973:** He travels to Los Angeles and soon auditions for Fonzie.
• **Jan. 15, 1974:** Happy Days premieres on ABC.
• **1976-77:** Happy Days becomes the No. 1 program on television.
• **July 19, 1984:** Happy Days ends after 255 episodes.
• **1996:** He appears, uncredited, as Principal Himbry in Scream.
• **2003:** He joins Arrested Development as Barry Zuckerkorn.
• **2018:** He wins a Primetime Emmy for Barry.
• **Oct. 30, 2026:** He turns 81.

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*ARCHIVE PHOTOS: Henry Winkler as Fonzie in a 1976 ABC press photo for Happy Days (left) and at the Barbican Centre in London on June 21, 2024 (right). Photos: ABC Television / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain (left); Raph_PH / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0 (right). Both cropped.*

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