desire to be that guy. Watching the climactic scene in ‘‘Rebel Without a
Cause,’’ as Dean sobs over Sal Mineo’s lifeless body, Winkler fell in love with
the way physical motion alone could communicate such deep feeling. Years
later, he learned to rehearse his lines with an awareness of the repetition
in his movements, using sense memory and muscle memory as a way to
work around his dyslexia.
Winkler’s dyslexia still makes him feel anxious and embarrassed, he
told me, and it aff ects almost every interaction. Dyslexics are used to
encountering obstacles and working around them, but the disability
doesn’t improve over time. He has trouble
decoding his own handwriting and fol-
lowing maps and schedules; he can only
remember left and right by thinking about
which elbow hangs out the window when
he’s behind the wheel. Stacey Winkler, his
wife of 44 years, told me that he manag-
es to drive past the gate to their house
once or twice a week. On Winkler’s fi rst
network-TV job, a guest shot in a 1973 epi-
sode of ‘‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show,’’ the
cast broke for lunch, and Winkler didn’t
know where to go or know whom to ask
and swore to himself that he would never,
ever let that happen to another person he
was acting with.
Although it did take him many tries, he
eventually passed geometry and graduated
from high school. At Emerson College in
Boston, he nearly fl unked out several times
but played the title role in ‘‘Peer Gynt.’’ In
1967 as a senior, he auditioned for the Yale
School of Drama, hoping to one day make
it on Broadway, but on his way to his audi-
tion, his anxiety spiked and the monologue
he memorized from Shakespeare’s ‘‘Two
Gentlemen of Verona’’ fl ew completely out
of his head. So he invented a monologue
that sounded Shakespearean, really sold it
and got in anyway.
James Naughton, a two-time Tony
winner, remembers meeting Winkler in
their fi rst year at Yale, describing him
as this sweet, young-looking guy with a
ton of energy. ‘‘I get a big kick out of the
fact that he’s playing an acting teacher,’’
Naughton said, of Winkler’s role in ‘‘Barry.’’
He described the destructive atmosphere
of their three-year program. ‘‘Those of us
who survived did it in spite of our teach-
ers.’’ He remembered a single instance
where he and a partner received praise for
their technique. ‘‘ ‘Wait, what?! Someone
actually said we accomplished something?’
It’s sort of built into the system, breaking
you down and criticizing you and making
you feel like [expletive].’’
Winkler also recalled the abuse he took
at Yale, imitating Stella Adler scoffi ng as
he tried to open an imaginary gate to
walk through his imaginary garden, and
Norma Brustein losing it when she caught
him taking notes in class, accusing him of
undermining her authority, criticism that
would one day come in handy for ‘‘Barry.’’ ‘‘I wasted my time, not by being
a student, but being so nervous,’’ Winkler said. ‘‘I was like a hummingbird,
fl apping my wings to stay up. I didn’t mean to be defensive, I tried to stay
open. I took notes, but I couldn’t spell, so I couldn’t read back my notes
because I couldn’t tell what the [expletive] it said.’’
At Yale, Winkler’s ambition and relentless work ethic rubbed some of
his classmates the wrong way, and they coined a slogan for him: ‘‘I want
instant international recognition.’’ He described himself ‘‘as that toy that
you punch. Bozo goes down, comes back to center — that’s what I did.’’52 5.1.22 Photograph by Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York Times
Of his time at Yale’s theater school, Winkler says: ‘‘I wasted
my time, not by being a student, but being so nervous. I was like
a hummingbird, flapping my wings to stay up.’’