Henry Winkler’s 6 Lessons of Reinvention

“When we got to the theater, I told her we should sit in the back. She didn’t understand, so we sat in the middle of the theater. And the entire theater came over and said hello. And Stacey said, ‘Oh!’ ”

Throughout the run of Happy Days, Fonzie was promoted and merchandised mercilessly, enough so it would be easy to write him off now as a lunch box caricature. The show eventually ended — though it was seven years after Fonzie literally jumped a shark while waterskiing — the source of the catchphrase that describes the point where TV shows (and other stuff) pass their moment of cultural relevance.

Winkler remains proud and protective of the legacy of Arthur Fonzarelli. Still, there was a cost to having played the popular television icon.

“I never resented the Fonz. He put a roof over my head,” Winkler says. “But after Happy Days, I struggled with being locked out of opportunity.”

Lesson 2: Learn to do whatever you set your sights on

In the years that followed, Winkler could not get cast in movies, so strong was the association with Fonzie. He refers to it as a kind of personal walk in the desert. “I knew it was necessary to figure out something else because I was completely stymied,” he says. “I couldn’t just sit there. I had a family, and I am a doer.”

Winkler went to work. In 1984, his lawyer said he would start up a production company for him. “I told him, ‘I’m an actor. I can’t do that other thing,’ ” Winkler recalls. “But it turns out you can even learn what you can’t do, then you get good at it.”

So Winkler produced, and he excelled at it. In 1985, he won a Daytime Emmy for a children’s after-school special. His company put together MacGyver, the popular and weirdly inventive show about a secret agent, which Winkler executive produced for seven years.

During that time, Winkler also directed two films with big stars: Memories of Me, with Billy Crystal, and Cop and a Half, with Burt Reynolds.

But acting roles, his first love, had dried up.

Lesson 3: Always say thank you

The end of Winkler’s first walk in the desert began in 1994, when Saturday Night Live cast member Adam Sandler dropped Winkler back into pop-culture relevance by name-checking Arthur Fonzarelli in his wildly successful “The Chanukah Song.” Winkler followed up by calling Sandler to thank him for the mention, sparking an unlikely but immediate and lasting friendship.

“Adam Sandler is shy. Adam Sandler probably has ADD. Adam Sandler does not dress well,” Winkler states flatly. “And Adam Sandler is brilliant — and loyal.” Sandler ended up casting Winkler as Coach Klein in his hit comedy The Waterboy (1998). Since then, Sandler has put Winkler in several of his films, including Click, in which he played Sandler’s father.

Winkler narrows his eyes, in an expression that should really be his alone, and riffs on the source of his connection with Sandler.

“Loyalty was a founding rock on which I built the Fonz. He really took care of those boys — Richie, Potsie, Ralph — no matter what he said to their faces.” And again, for just a second, the Fonz lives. Then Winkler tilts his head and is back. He’s loyal too. “I just saw Adam in New York City two weeks ago, taking his daughter to drama camp. Great family man.”

Lesson 4: If you can’t act, write!

Around the year 2000, when Winkler again wasn’t getting roles in television or film, he took a chance on a new kind of work. “A friend suggested, ‘Hey, write children’s books.’ At first, I said, ‘I can’t do that. I can’t read. I can’t spell. How am I going to write a book?’ But I was introduced to the writer Lin Oliver, and we created a process together.”

Together, Winkler and Oliver developed the character Hank Zipzer, who made his debut in 2003. Just like the young Winkler, he is a boy struggling with dyslexia. He’s funny, capable and popular — just terrible in school.

Twenty-eight books later, the Zipzer series is a fixture in the children’s book market here and in the U.K., where it was made into a TV series, with Winkler playing Zipzer’s favorite teacher. Winkler even promoted dyslexia awareness in the U.K., and for that, in 2011, Queen Elizabeth named him an Honorary Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.

Lesson 5: Find your best self

Eventually, good roles started to crop up. In 2003, Winkler started playing Barry Zuckerkorn, a hilariously incompetent lawyer, on the cult TV series Arrested Development.

Around that time, however, ­Stacey learned she had breast cancer. Her health crisis unearthed a crisis for Winkler too. As he tells it, at the moment when he should have been most present for his love, he withdrew.

“I went to her chemotherapy infusions, but my support consisted of falling asleep in the chair,” he admits. “I was not there. I’m not proud of that.”

In the years that followed, Winkler decided to explore what had happened to him. He committed to undergoing therapy as a means of exploring the traumas of his childhood: the demands of his old-world parents and the feeling that he was stupid. “I had covered that up with a Chernobyl-like layer of cement and let it sit,” he says. “I’ve spent years digging in, jackhammering that cement into small pieces.”

Lesson 6: Stay at the table

His return to acting picked up speed. Over the past two decades, Winkler has appeared in more than 100 television shows and movies. He even snagged a Daytime Emmy in 2005 for his work voicing a part in a children’s show.

None of which meant as much to Winkler as the break he caught in 2016 when he was cast as the obtuse, arrogant (yet still likable) acting coach Gene Cousineau in HBO’s Barry. At the mention of the show, Winkler rolls his eyes back, shakes his head and declares, “Barry is a miracle.”

Winkler, who had never won a Primetime Emmy despite several nominations, was awarded one after Barry’s first season. In his acceptance speech, he said, “If you stay at the table long enough, the chips come to you.”

He still revels in the accolade. “Actors sometimes say, ‘I don’t really care about the winning,’ ” Winkler says. “ ‘I have my Emmy or my whatever, and it’s a doorstop in the bathroom.’ They’re lying!”

As we wind down, the house remains abuzz with dogs and small children, and Winkler is entranced. Standing there, hands in pockets, he’s asked what further advice he’d give to readers. “Don’t think about what you don’t have,” he says. “Embrace and enjoy what’s in front of you.”

And what’s next for him? Is he still keen on work?

“I have my work and writing,” he says. “When will the switch flip? When will the dial turn me down?” He shrugs. “I still have the energy.” He smiles at the thought of work before he turns back to what’s in front of him, the people and the life he loves.