The disastrous 24 hours that have haunted Henry Winkler since 1973: “I will never be hired again”
While he’ll always be best known as ‘The Fonz’, which is par for the course when Arthur Fonzarelli is one of American television’s most iconic characters, Henry Winkler has enjoyed a stellar career on either side of his career-defining role.
He won back-to-back Golden Globes for Happy Days in 1977 and 1978, but it speaks to his longevity that his most recent nomination was for Bill Hader’s Barry in 2023, and he’s comfortably settled into his groove as an elder statesman who can always be relied on to deliver the goods.
Whether it’s drama or comedy, Winkler is equally comfortable in both, which is why he’s the guy who can comfortably steal scenes away from Adam Sandler in one of their many collaborations, lend support in Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch, and pop up for a cameo in a Dwayne Johnson superhero movie.
Like every actor of his generation, especially one who attended the Yale School of Drama, Winkler initially dreamed of a life treading the boards. Unfortunately, his first taste of the theatre would be his last for almost 30 years, which underlines just how traumatised he was by the whole sorry experience.
On March 11th, 1973, he made his Broadway debut in a play called 42 Seconds from Broadway. On March 11th, 1973, the production was officially closed after one performance, and it would be the last time he set foot on the stage until October 2000, when he made his long-awaited return in Neil Simon’s The Dinner Party.
“We opened and closed the same night,” he lamented. “I was taking off my makeup. They were ripping out the sink. They couldn’t get rid of me fast enough.” He’d put in the work to prepare himself for his Broadway arrival, only to discover that after one show and a barrage of vicious reviews, nobody ever wanted to see it again.
“It was devastating, devastating,” Winkler doubled down. “Because you think, who is going to hire you when your Broadway play closes? I thought, ‘I will never be hired again.'” Hardly the most auspicious introduction to his craft, but instead of wallowing in self-pity, which he had every right to do, Winkler focused his attention on film and television instead.
That same year, he made his small-screen bow in an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, the following year saw him grace the big screen for the first time in Crazy Joe and The Lords of Flatbush, and in January 1974, Happy Days premiered, with the worst 24 hours of his professional life and the definitive role of his career only separated by ten months.
In retrospect, it could have gone a lot worse, but it says a lot about how badly he was affected by 42 Seconds from Broadway‘s embarrassingly short run that he still hasn’t forgotten it over 50 years later, with the show barely lasting much longer than 42 seconds itself.
