The Wall Street Journal - 23.08.2019

M12| Friday, August 23, 2019 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

and became the class come-

dian. But I was in a constant

state of anxiety. I was always at

risk of embarrassment.

For example, I’d take a girl to a

dance and then leave her on her

own. I was compelled to check in

with all the cliques to make sure

I was still accepted.

At home, when I was

grounded, I couldn’t watch TV. If

I did while my parents were out, I

had to time it so the top of the

set was cool when they came

home. That meant turning it off

about an hour in advance. But

there were times when shows like

“The Untouchables” were so com-

pelling I had to weigh being pun-

ished against seeing the ending.

I became a great negotiator. To

watch TV and not get in trouble, I

had to convince my parents that

the show had educational merit.

In high school, I wasn’t allowed to

HOUSE CALL|HENRY WINKLER

James Dean

Gave Him a Cause

The actor, now in HBO’s ‘Barry,’ struggled

to cope with dyslexia in childhood

W

hen I was little, my parents would ground me for six
weeks at a stretch. I was a D student with an occa-
sional C-minus. Exasperated with my poor grades, my
father had me sit at my desk for hours and told me to
concentrate.
But I couldn’t. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. Nobody did.
We weren’t aware of dyslexia back then.
I grew up on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. My parents had emigrated
from Germany in 1939. At the time, my father, Harry, told my mother,
Ilse, that they were traveling to the U.S. on a brief business trip. He knew
they were never going back. Had he told my mother they were leaving
Germany for good, she might have insisted on remaining behind with her
family. Many in their families who stayed perished in the Holocaust.
Once my parents arrived in New
York, my father applied for work-visa
extensions to stay. Eventually, he be-
came a successful lumber importer and
exporter. He spoke 11 languages, could
do math in his head and was smart.
So his patience ran thin with me.
His German nickname for me was
“dumb dog,” which he often said with
mild disgust. My mother saw things his
way. They couldn’t see beyond their
expectations.
I didn’t care much for them, either. I
respected their journey and was grate-
ful to be born here. But they were a
couple in every sense of the word.
We lived on West 78th Street, on the
10th floor of an apartment building. I
had my own room and so did my sister,
Beatrice, who was four years older.
My bedroom was tiny. In the morn-
ing, I had to fold my bed against the
wall for more space. My closet was nar-
row and had been meant for brooms.
When I was 11, I saw “Rebel Without
a Cause.” I cried when James Dean
yelled out, “I got the bullets,” but the
police shot Sal Mineo anyway. From
that day forward, I wanted to be an ac-
tor. Maybe I couldn’t be effective in real
life but on stage, audiences told me I
was good.
After grade school, I attended the
McBurney School, a prep school for
boys run by the YMCA. I was outgoing

OH, HENRY

Picked up from par-
ents:Tenacity and the will
to survive

Favorite actor:Spencer
Tracy. There
wasn’t a false
beat in his
body.

Favorite
food:Bris-
ket, potato
pancakes and ap-
plesauce

Turning point:Earning
enough doing ads in New
York to fly to L.A. in ’73.
Two weeks later, I was
cast in “Happy Days.”

Model for “Barry”
role:My 14 acting teach-
ers, but mostly the one
who forced his students
to buy his art

Life lesson:How you do
in school has nothing to
do with how brilliant you
are. No one has said “hy-
potenuse” to me since
1962.

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try out for plays because I was al-

ways in an academic crisis. I did

manage to appear in two—”Billy

Budd” in eighth grade and the

musical “Of Thee I Sing” in 11th.

My music teacher, Donald

Rock, empathized. He said, “Look,

when you get out of here—if you

ever get out of here—you’re go-

ing to be great.”

To this day I’m visceral. I learn

through my ears and understand

through my gut. I can’t spell or

MANSION

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP CENTER: JESSICA SAMPLE FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL; HERB WEINSTEIN; GETTY IMAGES (2)

do math. If I pay with

cash, I can’t figure out

the change. I just smile

and hope the other per-

son is honest.

And yet I can memo-

rize entire scripts. I think

when my emotions are in-

vested, part of my brain

switches on and over-

compensates.

Today, my wife, Stacey,

and I live in Santa Monica,

Calif. We’ve been married

since 1978. We moved into

our Cape Cod 21 years

ago. It’s a warm and com-

fortable family home.

When we first saw the

house, we loved it. One

rainy day in May, we

knocked on the front door.

The owner turned out to

be a woman Stacey grew

up with about 2 miles way.

She was willing to sell.

I have a leather satchel

from the 1940s that be-

longed to my father. Inside are

his visa applications and requests

to remain in the U.S. Looking at

those papers helps me under-

stand my parents a little better.

Henry Winkler, 73, is an Emmy-

winning actor who stars in HBO’s

“Barry,” which will begin season

3 in 2020. He is the co-author of

33 children’s books and the au-

thor of a memoir, “I Never Met

an Idiot on the River” (Insight).

Henry Winkler at his home

in Santa Monica, left; in a

portrait around 1950, above;

and with ‘Happy Days’ cast:

Don Most, Anson Williams

and Ron Howard, below.

NY/NE