Being Henry: The Fonz . . . and Beyond

“So when they were screaming at me, I would listen to arias. Tebaldi. Corelli. It didn’t even have to be opera, as long as it was dramatic: Finlandia, by Sibelius. I would wave my arms, pretending to conduct. And sooner or later I would stop feeling bad.”

The passage introduces the motif of music, and how Henry Winkler uses it to escape his parents’ insults. He moves from a world of ugliness to one of beauty. His pretend conducting foreshadows how, as an adult, he will also pretend to conduct the children’s band on Here Comes the Boom.

“It got my attention. And taught me a big lesson. Laughs were all well and good, but the work was always to be taken seriously.”

Winkler describes how he tended to use humor to defuse emotional tension and reduce his anxieties. This backfired. An actress called him out for not taking the acting session seriously, making him realize that he needed to approach his work with more gravitas. Later he again tried using humor and deflecting questions; he failed again and was forced to confront his anxiety.

“But I made a vow then and there that this would never happen to another actor I was on a set with. Nobody I worked with would ever have to feel as alone as I did.”

Winkler was left alone briefly and thought that his acting company had left him. He felt left out before they appear again. As a result, he wanted to make sure that co-stars on his projects were not ostracized and felt supported by him. This shows how he used sadness and hardship in his life to help others. For example, he also used his experience with undiagnosed and untreated dyslexia as a child to help children with dyslexia gain support.