The Other Henry Winkler Stands Up for Kids (Appearing In Vancouver, BC Oct 19th)

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The other Henry Winkler stands up for kids
Actor-director comes here next week to talk about how he met the challenge of dyslexia

When Henry Winkler returns to Vancouver next week, it won't be as a director, a producer, a Golden Globe-winning actor or a best-selling author, even though he is all these things.

It certainly won't be as one of television's most beloved sitcom characters, because Winkler's 61 years old now and a long way, professionally and personally, from his television alter-ego, Arthur Fonzarelli, the Happy Days character that put him on the celebrity map more than 30 years ago.

Instead, Winkler will hit the stage Oct. 19 at the Speaking of Kids conference, sponsored by the Learning Disabilities Association of B.C. Vancouver chapter, and talk to teachers and child-care experts about the other Henry Winkler.


Not the one famous for wrapping the Fonz and his attitude in a tight leather jacket, but about the boy with dyslexia who grew into the man with dyslexia who could never quite figure out why he had so much trouble learning things.

Winkler was raised in a time, of course, when dyslexia, an inherited neurological condition often defined as word-blindness, was not a common diagnosis, when kids with learning disabilities bore a heavy burden, often humiliated and belittled by others.

"I was told that I was lazy and stupid and wouldn't live up to my potential," Winkler recalls.

And so he never really got the knack of learning.

"Math was out of the question. Spelling is still out of the question."

He was good at masking his shortcomings, though, by being the class clown, and he would even go on to earn a BA from Emerson College and a masters degree in fine arts at the Yale School of Drama.

Winkler's dyslexia was finally diagnosed when he was an adult, at the age of 31, ironically at the same time his young stepson Jed was receiving the same news.

"I said 'Omigod, that's me.' "

Winkler and wife Stacey, whom he wed in 1978, would have two more children, Max and Zoe, who would also be diagnosed with dyslexia.

When Happy Days ended its 10-year run in 1984, Winkler went to work behind the camera, producing and directing.

Then his thriving career, which included a reinvigorated return to acting roles in movies and television shows, and often brought him to Vancouver to work, took another somewhat unexpected turn.

In 1998, he was approached to write a book.

"I absolutely turned it down," he says. "I thought I couldn't do it."

Another pitch was made, in 2003, only this time it was suggested that Winkler write about his experiences, and learning challenges, with dyslexia.

Or, as they say, write what you know.

And so was born Hank Zipzer, the school-age protagonist of a series of children's novels co-written by Winkler and Lin Oliver, and titled Hank Zipzer: The World's Most Amazing Under-Achiever.

"Hank is me," Winkler says, on the phone recently from his Los Angeles home, where his other phone constantly rings and where he spends much of the day juggling a busy schedule, including his charitable work.

"And Zipzer is a woman who lived on the fourth floor of the building I was born and raised in."

In fact, Hank's character and adventures -- though imbued with a lot more humour -- mirror Winkler's own childhood and adolescence growing up in New York.

At first, the publishing deal was for a few books, but their success soon turned into a contract for 16.

The Hank Zipzer series includes titles like Niagara Falls: Or Does It?, and The Curtain Went Up But My Pants Fell Down, and I Got a D in Salami, and The Night I Flunked My Field Trip.

A few weeks ago, Winkler put pen to paper on book number 14, titled My Life, Welcome To It. Enter At Your Own Risk has Hank trying to write an autobiography, which he's having trouble doing, so he decides to go multi-media instead.

The public reaction to the books has been overwhelming, says Winkler, who has heard from thousands of kids and moms and dads and teachers, all of them relating to the trials and tribulations of growing up with a learning disability.

"One little boy wrote me and said: 'I laughed so hard, my funny bone fell out of my body.' "

All these years later, Winkler says a parent's greatest role, in dealing with a child with a disability, is as a "never-ending" advocate.

"You don't badger your child. You support your child, because the child will eventually meet their destiny."

He learned his lesson, he says, when his dyslexic son Max started doing homework standing at his desk with music blaring.

"At first I told him everything I was told, that his way was all wrong. Then I realized his grades were good and I said to myself, 'Why don't you just shut up, Henry.' "

Max had figured out how best to learn, says Winkler, and would graduate with honours and go on to USC and a career writing and selling film scripts.

"I learned to stay out of the way," he says.

These days, an older, wiser Winkler has no regrets.

"I used to think that I wish I could have gotten rid of my challenge. And then it dawned on me that I couldn't have achieved what I did without it.

"And I'm so proud of those books, I can't even tell you."