'Fonzie' at Book Revue for 'Hank Zipzer' series

BY DENISE FLAIM | denise.flaim@newsday.com

May 7, 2008

You know him best as Fonzie - no other explanation required. But these are "Happy Days" of a different sort for Henry Winkler, who has found a new calling as a children's book author. When he's not producing or acting, Winkler, 62, is working on his series of Hank Zipzer novels, about an underachiever with learning difficulties. He will be at Book Revue in Huntington on Saturday to speak about and sign his 14th installment in the series, "The Life of Me (Enter at Your Own Risk)."

You co-write the books with Lin Oliver. What's the creative process like?

I drive from my house in Santa Monica to her office in Hollywood, and she sits at the computer while I walk around her rug. We literally argue over every word and every rhythm. And if it doesn't make us both laugh, it doesn't get in.

When did you discover you were dyslexic?

When I was 31. My stepson was studying the Hopi Nation in the third grade, and my wife and I took him on a trip to Arizona. When he came back, he was so verbal about what he knew and saw. But when he went to do his report, he wrote two sentences - and they were smudged. I said everything to him that was said to me, "Go back upstairs, you're being lazy, you can do better than this."

[Once he got the appropriate academic help], everything they said to him, I thought, "Oh, my God - that's me."

The book's main character, Hank Zipzer, is autobiographical. How about his teacher?

Mrs. Adolf was my teacher in fourth grade. She was the worst teacher on the planet. She wouldn't let me go to the bathroom. She was humiliating - she knew I couldn't read out loud and she would force me to make a fool of myself. I have a newspaper article from a woman who was in my class who wrote a letter to the editor to say, he's not kidding. I carry it around with me.

Today, there are extraordinary teachers who understand children who learn differently. I light incense to them every day and bemoan the fact that I didn't have one.

Being dyslexic must have been really challenging as an actor. How did you get through all those scripts?

I could not read cold, so I always got the material as soon as possible. I memorized the audition. A lot of times, I'd go over and over it in a corner, and what I forgot, I made up. The director would say, "Excuse me, that's not what's written." And I'd say, "I'm giving you the essence of the character." You figure out a way to survive.

Is it true that even today, interviewers ask you to do the Fonz's signature "Aaaaaaaay" for them?

Yes. Mostly on radio stations.

You don't seem annoyed that the public continues to associate you so strongly with a leather-jacket-wearing, motorcycle-riding jukebox thumper.

Here's the truth: I love the Fonz. I love doing the Fonz. He has literally unlocked the world for me. When I go around the country, I meet the children who know me as the writer and are excited to talk about Hank in unbelievable detail. And their parents want to talk about the Fonz. They say, "Thank you for all those years of laughs," and they say it from their hearts. And I'm thinking, if you deny that, you are really full of horse puckey.

You live on the West Coast, but you were born and raised in Brooklyn. Miss it?

My body lives in Los Angeles, but my heart lives in New York. And my soul lives in Montana, where I fly-fish for trout. It's like a washing machine for the brain. My wife and I have to fish in different boats, though, because, unfortunately, I tend to fish in her water.

What's next?

I'm in Adam Sandler's new movie, "You Don't Mess With the Zohan" [due June 6]. He plays an Israeli commando who has a secret desire to be a hairdresser in New York. I play his limo client. It's my fourth film with him. My only beef with Adam is he hasn't read one of my novels.

WHEN&WHERE Henry Winkler visits Book Revue Saturday at 7 p.m. to discuss and sign "Hank Zipzer #14: The Life of Me (Enter at Your Own Risk)." Free admission; no reservations necessary. 313 New York Ave., Huntington, 631-271-1442.