Angeles to promote his latest book, the fi rst in a new
series for children called ‘‘Alien Superstar,’’ about a
blue-skinned alien with six eyeballs who is mistak-
en for an actor in costume. Our meeting had been
squeezed between radio interviews, a book signing
in Scarsdale, appearances on ‘‘The Today Show’’ and
‘‘The Tonight Show’’ and some school visits.
He noted some changes to the building’s exterior,
then stepped back and pointed to the window of his
childhood bedroom, the place where he hid from
his parents’ rages and danced alone to the music
from ‘‘West Side Story,’’ rehearsing the moves from
memory while dreaming of a way out. He recalled
the moment nearby when he accidentally stepped
into traffi c and was grazed by a van; the driver car-
ried him into the building. As we walked away from
all that heavy emotion, down 78th Street, he point-
ed out the stairwell where he had his fi rst kiss; the
Chirping Chicken on Amsterdam Avenue that used
to be a drugstore; the fi re station where he once
knew the fi remen’s names.
At the corner of Amsterdam, a mail carrier called
out, ‘‘Mr. Henry!’’ Winkler returned the greeting, then
put cash in a homeless girl’s hands. Receipts fell out
of his wallet, and he chased them down the sidewalk.
He got stuck at the door of a bakery, holding it open
for a woman with a stroller, then a second stroller
pushed by a woman who stared at him as he waved
to her kid. ‘‘All these babies!’’ Then he went up to the
counter and accidentally cut the line. After realizing
what he did — he had ordered his slice of poundcake
by then — he apologized, introducing himself, asking
the young couple he cut in front of their names and
the origins of their names, then paid for their order.
‘‘I had coff ee in my last interview,’’ he said as we
sat on a bench in a bus stop by P.S. 87, his old elemen-
tary school. ‘‘And now I’m fl ying out of my shoes.’’
He opened the bag and started eating.
As people came into the bus stop and stared, Win-
kler greeted them and off ered his seat. He was a lit-
tle jet-lagged and apparently hungry, doing his best
between bites to answer my probing questions about
his early trauma, although it was almost impossible
to hear his replies over the clatter of jackhammers.
Winkler’s father, Harry, a cultured, commanding
little Napoleon, was fl uent in maybe six languages,
and used more than one of them to berate his son.
His mother Ilse’s weapon of choice was a hairbrush.
Winkler recalled a morning at breakfast when he
clowned over a bowl of Rice Krispies, then cowered as his mother leaped
to her feet to attack him. After he fi gured out what they thought of him, he
did his best to tune them out, which eventually turned his living room into
a war zone. ‘‘I learned to squash a lot,’’ he told me at the bus stop. ‘‘But even-
tually you can’t squash anymore, because there’s no more room to squash.’’
His parents had so narrowly escaped the Nazis when they left Berlin in
1939 that even one day later, Harry’s brother tried but could not get out. He
died in the camps, as did most of their extended family. Harry smuggled
out the family jewels, because he knew they were never going back, but
he led Ilse to believe that they would be heading home soon. She missed
Germany and suff ered from depression, and when Winkler was born in
1945, she had a nervous breakdown and was institutionalized, though he
wasn’t sure exactly when or for how long. ‘‘It’s all hazy,’’ Winkler said, ‘‘and
I didn’t like them to the point where I never asked them a question.’’He and his sister, Beatrice, were not close until years later, and he recalled
with dread their fractured home life, the somber mood at the dinner table,
the lack of praise and laughter and kids’ art on the walls. His academic
failings and learning disability added to that pervasive feeling of sadness
at home. He didn’t have cool friends and was always on edge. But in sixth
grade, he saw the Moiseyev Dance Company in Madison Square Garden,
and it took his breath away, the music and the bodies in fl ight. At 13 he saw
‘‘West Side Story,’’ then went back 10 more times.
‘‘My emotionality inside was always bigger than was appropriate,’’ he
said. ‘‘Man, oh, man.’’ Maybe a life on the stage, on the screen, would be
large enough to contain him.
Winkler recalled how, as the credits rolled and the overture swelled and
an actor like Albert Finney, Jimmy Stewart or James Dean came onscreen,
From top: Jordin Althaus/HBO; Paramount, via Everett Collection. he would get a feeling as if he’d been hit by lightning — a raw, electrifi ed
The New York Times Magazine 51Top: Henry Winkler with Bill Hader and Sarah Goldberg in ‘‘Barry.’’
Below: The cast of ‘‘Happy Days’’ with, from top left, Tom Bosley, Marion
Ross, Winkler, Ron Howard and Erin Moran.