The New York Times Magazine - USA (2022-05-01)

inside that character, you become that character,

sort of, and then your show is canceled and it’s

time to grow and evolve, to convince casting

directors, studio execs, writers and audiences

that you’re someone new. Inadvertently trigger-

ing associations to your last gig ruins that. If you

look up the word ‘‘typecasting’’ on Wikipedia,

you can read about the struggles of William Shat-

ner and Patrick Stewart, or you can just watch

‘‘Galaxy Quest,’’ a movie about a bunch of type-

cast ‘‘Star Trek’’-type actors miserably signing

autographs at low-rent fan conventions. After

178 episodes and four fi lms in his Starfl eet uni-

form, Stewart told The London Times in 2007,

‘‘It came to a point where I had no idea where

Picard began and I ended.’’ (Stewart, by the way,

is back with the Enterprise crew and is three

seasons into ‘‘Star Trek: Picard.’’)

‘‘ ‘Happy Days’ was a blessing and a curse,’’ Bob

Balaban told me. Balaban and Winkler had known

each other since the 1970s but got closer in the

spring of 2019, in France, shooting ‘‘The French

Dispatch,’’ Wes Anderson’s movie, in which they

play art-dealer brothers. ‘‘Henry is an absolutely

wonderful actor,’’ he said. ‘‘But it took nine or 10

years for the frenzy over the Fonz to calm down

enough so you could put him in something, and

he didn’t enter into your serious movie and get

laughter just because he was the Fonz. Movies are

about believing, acting is about believing, and it’s

hard sometimes to believe somebody when you

think you know them that well.’’

In 1977 Winkler starred in the fi lm ‘‘Heroes,’’

which did reasonably well at the box offi ce but

was widely panned. Vincent Canby called it

‘‘truly rotten’’ and called out Winkler’s perfor-

mance in particular as a kind of terrifying bell-

wether. Winkler brings ‘‘to the motion-picture

theater all of the magic of commercial television

except canned laughter,’’ he wrote, adding that

it was ‘‘a frighteningly bad fi lm because it could

well be the defi nitive theatrical motion picture

of the future.’’ The critics were just getting start-

ed. The following year Winkler starred in ‘‘The

One and Only’’ (‘‘alternates between the coy

and the cute,’’ Canby complained) and the year

after that an Americanized TV adaptation of ‘‘A

Christmas Carol’’ (‘‘unnecessary and pointless,’’

Tom Shales wrote).

‘‘The audience that came wanted to see what

they liked, and I thought I was being a clever,

clever person doing something that would not

typecast me,’’ Winkler said. ‘‘When I look back

now at ‘The One and Only’ or ‘Heroes,’ I see an

actor who is limited. I am no leading man. There

is no leading man in me. I’m a character actor.’’

When I asked what a great acting teacher like

Gene might have done to help restore the talents

of a 36 -year-old superstar coming off 11 years as

Fonzie, who might have lost focus or intensity or

grown stuck in a certain persona, Winkler was

momentarily silent.

‘‘I don’t know. I would have to say, ‘OK, we’ve

gotta break you down and clean out all of that

experience so that you can renew, so that you

can build on it.’ As his coach, I would have him do

scenes that aren’t necessarily in his wheelhouse,

stuff he was not comfortable with, and hopefully

after months of that, he would break loose of this

block of ice, it would start to crack.’’

In the past two decades, Winkler has become

widely known to generations of viewers who

never knew the Fonz: as the wrathful OB-GYN

Dr. Lu Saperstein on ‘‘Parks and Recreation,’’

as the fraudster father Eddie Lawson on ‘‘Royal

Pains’’ and in his critically praised role as Barry

Zuckerkorn, the world’s worst lawyer, on the

beloved, deranged satire ‘‘Arrested Develop-

ment.’’ Winkler has played such a wide vari-

ety of goofy or supporting roles since ‘‘Happy

54 KenKen® is a registered trademark of Nextoy, LLC. © 2022 http://www.KENKEN.com. All rights reserved.

Fill the grid with digits so as not to repeat a digit in any row or column, and so that the digits within each heavily outlined

box will produce the target number shown, by using addition, subtraction, multiplication or division, as indicated in the box.

A 5x5 grid will use the digits 1–5. A 7x7 grid will use 1–7.

KENKEN

SPELLING BEE

Chiefly (3 points). Also: Chicle, chili, chill, chilly, cliche, cliff,

cycle, cyclic, filch, filly, fleece, fleecy, hilly, icicle, icily, leech,

lychee. If you found other legitimate dictionary words in the

beehive, feel free to include them in your score.

MAGAZINE RACKET

Answers to puzzles of 4.24.22

Answers to puzzle on Page 56

SCULPT GNAW DABS INFO

NOMORE MIRO OSHA TURK

APPLEJACKET WHATMAKES

GAS WATSONANDCRICKET

GENE NANO AANDE

CARBOMB MINTY IBEX

COCA POSTBAC ATANY

SITTINONTHEDOCKET DSL

INVADE GARR NULLVALUE

LVI LAND RAE POEM

LIKEAMILLIONBUCKETS

MOTO DOC LEGO STU

EATSPALEO BOOS ODISTS

RTE UNDERGROUNDROCKET

CHART WOODTAR HOLY

HEMI ALBEEPITFALL

CANOE TRAM NEAT

FRONTOFTHEPACKET TAU

YOUTICKET DARNSOCKETS

AINT OILY DRIB FAERIE

MEGA WELL STAC FTYPES

KENKEN

HEX NUTS HASHI

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T E

E T

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H I

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H

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EO

I M

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OT

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GW

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A

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GD

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THE O

1 4 5 4 1

4 4 1 2

4

6 2 2 5

4

5 3 2 3

1 2 4 3 2

ACROSTIC

A. Washed up

B. Icebreaker

C. Log cabin

D. Left-click

E. Inflation

F. Allspice

G. Memento

H. Splits

I. Tractor

J. Halogen

K. Earthworks

L. Frisbee

M. Long wait

N. Orthodoxy

O. “Respect”

P. Inventory

Q. Dimples

R. Anopheles

S. Knee bends

T. Engulfed

U. “Yeah, right”

V. Stravinsky

(JOY) WILLIAMS, THE FLORIDA KEYS — For experienced

... divers, a dive at night is... especially remarkable....
The coral polyps open like flowers to feed on the plankton
floating by, and the water is lit by luminescent organisms
corkscrewing through the blackness.