Playboy Interview: Henry Winkler

There they are: Neil Simon and Sidney Lumet and Robert DeNiro and Martin Scorsese and Gore Vidal and Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood and Charles Bronson. They are formally dressed, in small groups, talking their deals, talking about pictures, plays, books, The Industry, smack in the heart of Hollywood managerial power, the theatrical home of Sue Mengers, agent to the high and mighty. The doorbell rings. Conversations continue and no one pays any attention except Wagner, who notices the entrance of a scruffy-looking kid, 5'6" short, with messy hair, Pan-Cake make-up on his face, wearing dungarees, a very casual shirt, standing with a lady who is trying her best not to look tall. A smile turns the corners of Wagner's mouth. Other people turn to see who's come. Suddenly, they're all quiet.

The Fonz has just shown up.

"Heyyyyyy," Wagner says to the kid, "you're one of my best routines." Only Wagner doesn't quite have it; he doesn't have the one-beat pause that makes the Fontz's "Hey-yyyyy" a kind of pop poetry.

Henry Winkler spots the imitation for what it is; people are always going "Hey-yyyyy" and "Whoa-a-ah" to him and he hasn't heard many who've got it right. "It's very nice to meet you, Mr. Wagner," he says nervously. Stacey, Winkler's girlfriend, is also nervous. Mengers hadn't mentioned who would be there. She had just said, come casual. Winkler had come right off the set of "Happy Days," looking like the cool punk from the TV show and not like the Yalie he likes to be seen as offcamera. He feels decidedly out of place in this room; out of place and in awe. Bronson and DeNiro and Scorsese are idols to this 31-year-old New Yorker. But what's happening is incredible. People are leaving their conversations and coming toward him! They all want to meet the Fonz. And they're asking for--yes, even here--autographs! For their kids, of course. Winkler isn't taking it lightly. There may be some truth to what Bronson mutters at him as Winkler scribbles down his name: "Kid, you may never find another character as colorful."

Winkler would argue that he didn't just find the character of the Fonz. His parents, strict and strait-laced immigrants who fled Nazi Germany six years before their second child, Henry, was born, tried hard to channel his interests away from acting. But from his earliest days as an inveterate moviegoer to the school plays at Emerson College in Boston, Winkler felt he was destined to become an actor. A below-average student, he was flabbergasted to be one of 25 accepted at the Yale School of Drama in 1967.

After a year of parts in small theaters in the New York area and at least 30 commercials, he heard about an audition for a low-budget film called "The Lords of Flatbush" being made in New York. They were looking for Fifties punks. Winkler got one of the roles. So did another unknown named Sylvester Stallone. Between takes, both young men would sit in the back seat of a car and talk about their drives and their ambitions.

After "Flatbush," Winkler landed another bit part, in the film "Crazy Joe," a cheap, immediately forgettable gangster movie starring Peter Boyle. In his gut, he knew if he were going to make it, he'd have to go to Hollywood and work his way up. He packed his bags and left New York.

He arrived in Hollywood in September 1973 and, though utterly unknown, within three weeks managed to land a small part in an episode of the "Mary Tyler Moore Show." Next came a pilot for a new television series about the innocence of high school in the Fifties, picking up on the momentum of the film "American Graffiti," with a touch of "The Lords of Flatbush." It was called "Happy Days" and Winkler got the part of Arthur Fonzarelli, the high school dropout who sat on his motorcycle, hung out at the local malt shop and used its men's room as his private headquarters, where he dished out advice on how to be cool to the more timid students of Jefferson High.

The way the writers conceived the role, the Fonz was barely more than a walk-on character, thrown in for a few jokes, always in the background. But Winkler saw him differently: The Fonz would be the prototype of cool, the epitome of discretion, the philosopher dropout, who, unlike other greaser stereotypes, never combed his hair, snapped his gum or smoked a cigarette. Winkler's instincts proved correct. Thousands of letters started pouring in, millions of people tuned in each week and "Happy Days" rose in the ratings until it became the number-one-rated show in the nation. Within two years, Winkler was sharing star billing with Ron Howard, around whose homey, good-natured character the show was originally structured.

Winkler had created a craze with his leather-jacketed alter ego. When he turned his thumbs up, kids across America picked up on it. When he opened his mouth to stop a motion, turn directions, take a moment to contemplate, it came out "Whoa-a-ah," and a word was coined. Audiences loved it. The other networks virtually conceded the Tuesday-night eight-P.M. spot to "Happy Days."

At last count, Winkler was receiving over 55,000 letters a week. There are Fonzie posters, Fonzie T-shirts, Fonzie dolls, Fonzie fan magazines and Fonzie books. At the Hollywood Wax Museum, the largest and most popular exhibit is the Fonz on his motorcycle, with light bulbs popping on and off over his head. The Fonz was the reason for Winkler's popularity; for his receiving the Hollywood Foreign Press's 1976 Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a TV Comedy Series; for his being crowned the 1976 King of Mardi Gras in New Orleans; for his being invited to highpowered Hollywood parties; and for his being propositioned by women of all ages and sizes. Manufacturers made him incredible offers that he somehow knew to refuse; they wanted the Fonz to advertise their products. But Winkler didn't want to carry the Fonz on his back for the rest of his life. It had happened to Edd "Kookie" Byrnes and to Leonard "Mr. Spock" Nimoy. Winkler, who was beginning to bore people with his repeated insistence that he was not the Fonz, wanted more. He wanted more roles, and that meant he had to be known as Henry Winkler.

Scripts began to come his way, but they were mostly Fonzielike spin-offs and Winkler didn't want any part of them. He did a few TV specials: "Katherine," in which he played a radical terrorist, and "Henry Winkler Meets William Shakespeare," a show geared to introduce children to the Bard. Finally, two movie scripts interested him. One, "Heroes," was about a Vietnam veteran who lost some of his marbles in the war and was on a mission destined for failure; the other was about a failed actor who turned to professional wrestling to hear the roar of the crowds. He signed to do them both, the first for Universal Studios, the second for Paramount, while considering a third about an immigrant Hasidic rabbi going to San Francisco to establish a rabbinate.

It was during that time of change for Winkler that Playboy sent free-lance writer Lawrence Grobel to talk with him. Grobel caught up with him during the last week of shooting of the "Happy Days" season and stayed through the completion of "Heroes." In between, Winkler flew off to New Orleans to ride a Mardi Gras float for four hours and to acknowledge the cheering adulation of 1,000,000 people. Grobel's report:

"The first time I met Henry was in his dressing room at Paramount studios. He had just returned from a few weeks' vacation in Bora Bora and was energized by the fact that people recognized him even there. Although he was still shooting 'Happy Days,' his mind was elsewhere: Everything he had done in his life was aimed at starring in a motion picture and now he was getting his shot. He was eager to talk but extremely cautious at first. His restlessness and his energy were such that he had never before sat still for a long interview.

"A subsequent session took place at his home in Studio City a few days after he returned from Mardi Gras. He couldn't wait to talk about it. He had seen enormous crowds before but nothing like the 1,000,000 people who shouted his name as he floated by in his silver-lamé 15th Century Venetian costume. For Henry, it was realizing a rock-star fantasy and he loved every minute of it.

"His excitement was contagious. One moment he would be the local tough, the next a five-year-old kid, his voice lowering and rising. He would stand up and act out how he had thrown doubloons to the crowd, bouncing from the couch to the living-room sliding-glass door to the porch outside. 'Come, look at my redwood hot tub,' he'd say, or, 'Look at these clippings of me as Romeo on the front page of the New York Post; can you believe it?' When he spoke of meeting movie stars he had always admired, his voice became worshipful. When he spoke about starring in his own movies, his voice was filled with anxiety and his behavior changed markedly. He slid off the couch and onto the floor, his body arched uncomfortably and the pain in his face showed clearly.

"During the second week of shooting 'Heroes,' I flew to Santa Rosa, about 40 miles north of San Francisco, where Henry was on location. He had a sore throat and a bad cold and shooting had to be delayed a few days so he could recuperate. His body was reacting to all the excitement and tension that had been exploding within him. Universal had hired a security guard to stand outside his room and keep the fans from disturbing him. Over the next three days, he began to talk freely. As his eyes occasionally darted past me to peek out of a small opening in the curtains to see who was peeking in from the world outside, I thought his phenomenal popularity would be a good subject on which to begin this interview."

[Q] Playboy: The security around this motel room we're talking in is remarkable. There's even an armed guard outside the door to keep away your fans. Don't you feel like a prisoner?

[A] Winkler: Yeah. I can't even open the fucking blinds.

[Q] Playboy: A lot of the people around here seem to be teenage girls who heard you were shooting your first film in this small town. Is this something that happens mostly in small towns?

[A] Winkler: No; small towns, big towns. They exist in every town in every country, it seems like. The same thing happened in Australia when I went there. They're not groupies. It's just that they sincerely believe in the illusion of the entertainment world; and they sincerely believe that it is 25 times more exciting than their own lives. Well, it's exciting for me, too. My life is not ordinary. I don't live in the middle.

[A] The second night of shooting, I was on a truck and had to ask the fans not to take flashbulb pictures while the cameras rolled. We did the scene and I stayed on the truck. Well, they rushed the truck, ripped the headlights off, tore up the knapsacks, took the suitcases, the license plates, everything. There was nothing left, and they managed to get me off the truck in one piece.

[Q] Playboy: You seem to be treated more like a rock superstar or a matinee idol than like a television actor.

[A] Winkler: Here, this was in the paper: "As I listen to the crowd chant 'We want Winkler,' I realize we are living in the Henry Winkler generation. Jim Burroughs, boss of the truckers, who handled the props and scenery, and who has been in the moviemaking business since the early days of Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, said, 'He's the one star today who brings out the most enthusiastic crowd, like Frank Sinatra did years ago.'"

[Q] Playboy: When you read that----

[A] Winkler: You feel good.

[Q] Playboy: Does it still amaze you or are you used to it by now?

[A] Winkler: I'm amazed all the time. What I'm amazed at is that at 9:30 at night some guy will come to my door and go, "My kids are dyin' to see ya." "But, sir," I mumble, "I'm in bed, I have to get up at six in the morning." The guy persists: "I just want your name on my piece of paper. Very important to my life to have your name on my piece of paper."

[A] This old couple came to the door and it made me angry, because it's not cute. They just got out of their car and knocked on my door one Sunday morning--my one day off--and got me out of bed. They were holding this poodle wrapped in a blanket and said, "We can't believe it, we just came to see what you look like. We're very good friends of the Kennedys, you know."

[Q] Playboy: How do you feel about having the equivalent of the Secret Service around you?

[A] Winkler: I feel pragmatic about it. When I was King of Mardi Gras, I was told by the New Orleans Police Department that I had more security than the President of the United States. When I walked in the streets, I was surrounded by at least 11 men. I could walk no farther than 50 feet.

[Q] Playboy: Is it possible for you to be inconspicuous any more?

[A] Winkler: No. I'm instantaneously recognizable by everybody. That's just a fact. It freaks the police out. They ask, "How do they see you so quickly? How do they know?"

[Q] Playboy: Does it ever get to you?

[A] Winkler: It bothers me. You need your full energy in order to relate to it. If you feel down at all, the pressure just starts to... not pull but scrape at you. Everybody wants a piece. Sometimes you can get angry, but you cannot blame it on anybody. You have to come to terms with the fact that it didn't happen by accident: It's what you wanted.

[A] The first thing to get over is the feeling that you have to be a nice guy, that you have to be loved by everybody. Today, everybody wants me to do a script, to read this, to be there, to be a part of some show. It can eat away at you; you can spread yourself thin, so that you become Plastic Man or Elastic Man in the comics.

[Q] Playboy: You're making a good case for obscurity.

[A] Winkler: Oh, there are very positive things to being a celebrity. I mean, you don't see me giving it all up to go to Mozambique. There are so many little side lights to having recognition. Policemen stop me for a traffic violation and then say, "How can I give my wife's favorite actor a ticket?" It's a shame that this is the way doors are opened, but if that's the way it is, then I'm very happy to walk through them.

[Q] Playboy: Is it true that women write to you requesting the stubble from your razor?

[A] Winkler: I get everything; yeah, it's really true. Every possible request that you can think of. I get 56,000 letters a week. That's a lot of letters.

[Q] Playboy: Have you met any of your correspondents?

[A] Winkler: At the top, ten. A lot of my friends thought I was totally bizarre, because I would sit home and personally answer, on the back of an old script of Happy Days, letters that touched me. I thought I would have liked that if I'd been the letter writer. What I realized is that I took all that time because it kept me isolated so that I could absorb what was happening to me. I would get these wonderful letters and they'd give me their phone numbers and I would call them and say, "Hi, I just wanted to tell you I've got your letter and let's talk about what you said." They wouldn't believe me.

[Q] Playboy: And, presumably, a lot of your friendlier fans have been women.

[A] Winkler: Yeah, and it's been very flattering. In the past, I've always done the asking and women have said yes or no. I now know what it is to be a woman, to be bombarded like that. Women, especially beautiful women, go through an incredible trip. It's nothing to be taken lightly.

[Q] Playboy: So you're being treated like a beautiful man?

[A] Winkler: At this moment. Which is real strange, because I never thought of myself as good-looking. Now, all of a sudden, I'm told that I'm very good-looking by women of all shapes and sizes. The Men Watchers of America picked me as one of the Ten Most Desirable Men of the Year. Which is really a trip! I can't even believe it.

[Q] Playboy: What are some of the things women say to you?

[A] Winkler: "I want to see you later." "Give me your hotel key." You know, "I want to sit on you." But what happens is that you can't go for it. It's very empty. I've had my share, you understand. I'm not saying that I cannot do it. There have been times on the road when I've lived the sort of life I used to read about in the orthodontist's office when I was 13 years old. You know: chicks knocking on my door at six in the morning; I open it up and there's this beautiful girl going, "Hi, are you asleep?" "No, actually, I'm writing out the Magna Charta from memory." Am I asleep? It's six o'clock in the morning! So I just go, "Now that you're here, why don't you just come in?"

[Q] Playboy: Does that sort of thing put pressure on you to perform like a sexual athlete?

[A] Winkler: No, I can't worry about that. If I had done everybody I was supposed to have done just in this town, it would have fallen off a long time ago. If I were to live an image, I would live one day behind myself.

[Q] Playboy: How about the images you create? For instance, you were once quoted as saying all your success and power made you feel like God. How did you live down that image?

[A] Winkler: I meant in the moral, not the religious, concept of God. It's just that when you are at the pinnacle of power, you feel like a great conqueror, like a hero, like the best gladiator. You are pumped up with energy. It's incredible. I'm made to think about myself all the time. Every time I turn around, I see myself. I look in store windows, on T-shirts, on fans' chests, on their legs, everywhere, I see myself.

[Q] Playboy: And how do you see yourself?

[A] Winkler: You know, when I stop to think about it, I really don't care anymore. Because I know what I am. I am not as cool as Fonzie. I cannot possibly be what my fans' imaginations make me out to be. Fonzie does things that--who can do them? I can't hit a jukebox and make it go on like that!

[A] But I'm having a very good time. I'm doing what I love to do and apparently, at this moment in my life, I'm doing it pretty well. One day it could all just go away like that [Snaps fingers], but at the moment, I'm just me: I say what I want to say, do what I want to do. I don't think that all of a sudden I've changed. Just because people tell me whatever they tell me, that I'm good-looking or sexy or whatever, I don't believe I can do what I couldn't do before I became famous, before I became the Fonz.

[Q] Playboy: Since you brought it up, how did you happen to become the Fonz, anyway?

[A] Winkler: Well, it happened pretty quickly. I arrived in Hollywood from New York on September 18, 1973. On October fifth, I got a bit part with The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Within a month. I did the pilot for Happy Days.

[Q] Playboy: Were you the Fonz in that pilot?

[A] Winkler: Yes and I had six lines.

[Q] Playboy: How did you get the part?

[A] Winkler: Just by auditioning. I was one of the last guys in line at Paramount. While I sat there, waiting, I saw Mickey Dolenz from the Monkees and other people who were names--and Hollywood, in television, anyway, goes on names. I was real lucky.

[Q] Playboy: Did you envision the character you were supposed to play right away?

[A] Winkler: No, not what the Fonz is now. But I did know two things: There would have to be more than just the tough side of a guy wearing a leather jacket; and I knew that I would never comb my hair, never wear a belt, never chew gum and never carry a pack of cigarettes in my T-shirt--all of which seemed to be the standard clichés for every actor doing a Fifties role. The day after I read for the part, they called and said, "Would you like to do it?"

[Q] Playboy: So how did you develop the character?

[A] Winkler: That came over four years. But I knew what I wanted. And that's the fucking key! I knew what I wanted. If you know what you want and you brush your teeth with what you want, it will come to you like a magnet.

[Q] Playboy: You obviously wanted Fonzie to succeed. When did you realize his potential?

[A] Winkler: That first day. It was when I swore that I would never comb my hair. The director of the pilot said, "Go to the mirror now and comb your hair." So I had a conflict. You can't really say no to a director, and this was my first paying job. I was being paid $1000, which was more than I'd ever been paid in my life. So I went to the mirror and took the comb out of my back pocket. I looked at myself and suddenly said, in character, "Hey, are you kidding? You don't have to touch that hair; it's perfect!" And that one gesture started the character off. Everybody picked that up. And it came out of being forced; it was forced out of me. I hadn't thought of that before I did it.

[Q] Playboy: There are a lot of imitations of your character. Does anyone do a good Fonz that you know of?

[A] Winkler: Very few people: They all do it too quickly. Being the Fonz is reacting the way he would to a certain situation, and what people do instead of react is imitate. But it's flattering that they do it. Bob Hope put on a wig and came out with a motorcycle on television. Rich Little has done it. A lot of the new series have a character based on Fonzie.

[Q] Playboy: What about John Travolta on Welcome Back, Kotter? Isn't there a conscious effort to imitate the Fonz in his character?

[A] Winkler: Yeah, what about him? That's all made up. He doesn't do it. I don't resent him.

[Q] Playboy: Does comparing him to you create a build-up for him?

[A] Winkler: Of course. Look what they do in People magazine. Any time they can, they use my name five, six times in articles that have nothing to do with me.

[Q] Playboy: You wrote a column yourself for Newsweek called "The Importance of Being Fonzie." Was that your title?

[A] Winkler: Oh, no, it was theirs. I would never write that. I got 50 letters back from Newsweek, all of them negative. It totally blew me away. They said, Who is Fonzie, anyway? Who do you think you are? You're just an egoist. And I said, Wait a minute. Newsweek asked me to write down as honestly as I could what it is to be famous. And now its readers are yelling at me?

[Q] Playboy: When did you realize the importance of being Fonzie?

[A] Winkler: I realized it when I went to Little Rock, Arkansas, the first place I ever made a personal appearance, and was met at the airport by 2000 people.

[Q] Playboy: And when did it occur to you that you were worth more than the $1000 per show ABC was paying you?

[A] Winkler: When I did a pilot for The Paul Sand Show, two years into Happy Days. The people at Mary Tyler Moore's company, MTM, called me up--I had already done the Bob Newhart Show and two Mary Tyler Moores--and they said, "All right, we're going to give you $3000 just to do the pilot." They wanted ten days' rehearsal. I said I could only give them four. They said, "We'll work around your schedule." Now, I couldn't believe I was in that position. No kidding. I went over there, did four days' rehearsal and was paid $3000, the most money I was ever paid in my life. I now get considerably more than that a week.

[Q] Playboy: About five times as much?

[A] Winkler: Around in there. All business is done by my lawyer and my agents. I don't like the idea of an entourage. I don't have a personal manager. I have a lawyer, a business manager, two agents out here and one in New York and my commercial agents in New York, two women who are extraordinary.

[Q] Playboy: What seems also extraordinary is the fact that you have overshadowed the original star of Happy Days, Ron Howard, and are paid more money per episode than he is, and yet the two of you apparently maintain a good relationship.

[A] Winkler: One of the major factors in the success of the character is Ron Howard's generosity. That is absolutely the truth.

[Q] Playboy: His generosity in being able to accept your growth in the part?

[A] Winkler: Absolutely. He allows me to go, when we're acting together, in any direction I choose. He is totally open to my character.

[Q] Playboy: Has he ever zinged you while you were acting?

[A] Winkler: Ron Howard is not a man for zingers. Ron Howard is a very quiet man, who also rumbles underneath.

[Q] Playboy: But certainly the other actors on the show are only human. Don't they feel some envy?

[A] Winkler: It's the one thing I try to ignore. When I'm at work, we almost never bring it up and I hate it when it's brought up. I'll leave the conversation immediately. But the fact is, they are very aware of what has happened to me. I didn't know this was going to happen. I just did my work.

[Q] Playboy: And other people's resentment doesn't bother you?

[A] Winkler: Listen, I went to see Sly Fox in New York City. I took my niece, who is 12, to the theater for the first time. We sat there giggling and having a good time, then we went backstage to see an acquaintance of mine, Jack Gilford. After we said hello, someone said, "Mr. Scott wants to see you." I started walking. He said, "Oh, no, if he knew you were here and we didn't introduce you, he'd be angry." So now we have George C. Scott, sitting in his dressing room wearing a yellow terrycloth bathrobe, playing chess with a man who is equally big. The door opens, he looks up and goes, "The Fonz. I watch you all the time." He got up and shook my hand and I didn't know what to do. I just hugged him. I said, "I can't believe it!" Now I don't care what anybody says in the whole world.

[Q] Playboy: You seem star-struck.

[A] Winkler: I am star-struck, I swear to you. I get to meet a lot of terrific people. Alice Cooper. Phoebe Snow called me on the phone the other night. John Lennon. Rosemary Clooney, a terrific lady. I shook Bob Hope's hand. I met the Duke. He is so big, he walked out, looked down at me and thought I was a microphone. He thought he was supposed to talk into the top of my head. I met Frank Sinatra. He sent me an autographed picture: "To Henry Winkler, Happy Days, Francis Albert." That was terrif.

[Q] Playboy: Did you send him one back?

[A] Winkler: I thought that would be hubris. I might be a star and I might be famous at this moment in my life, but you pay homage. I have Charles Bronson's autograph sitting on the wall. When I met Robert DeNiro, I totally went into shock. I'm in awe of DeNiro. I would like to be that connected. I said that I liked Mean Streets and he said it was his favorite. I said, "The language became poetry." He said, "It was the litany: 'Fuck you, fucker, fuckface, fuck.'" Bobby DeNiro's use of the word fuck became poetry.

[Q] Playboy: You've created a kind of pop poetry yourself. Do you ever find yourself using the Fonz's expressions?

[A] Winkler: I am not the Fonz. I don't think like the Fonz. But the one thing that has crept over is if I'm surprised or something, I'll go, "Whoa. Whoa, that's great. Whoa-a-ah, I like that."

[Q] Playboy: You get very defensive trying to separate yourself from the Fonz, don't you?

[A] Winkler: Absolutely. The pressure to be the Fonz is enormous, because I'm asked all the time: "Where's your leather jacket?" "Where's your motorcycle?" "Hey, how do you hit the jukebox?" "Hey, you didn't sign as the Fonz." I don't sign "The Fonz" when I sign an autograph. I sign, "Henry Winkler." When I began to make an issue of it--refusing to sign "The Fonz"--everybody thought I was repeating myself too often. But it's worked like a charm. Now only journalists who are too lazy to find another angle write about the Fonz saying this or that.

[Q] Playboy: But you have sounded obsessed with the theme in other interviews.

[A] Winkler: Yeah, sure that's true. You geta bit confused about who you are. There are times I think I sound like I'm crazy.

[Q] Playboy: Are you so concerned about typecasting?

[A] Winkler: How I think about typecasting is this: One's impression of oneself is the way other people will see you. I think I can do other things. But, yes, sometimes when I'm working, my body screams for material with just a little more depth.

[Q] Playboy: Do you find situation comedy as a form frustrating?

[A] Winkler: Television is a barracuda. It's very difficult to be original week after week in a TV series. Because there is so much of television, because you do 24 episodes in a row and because you do them for five years--you have to use Tai-Chi in order to keep the bad spirits away.

[Q] Playboy: Have you thought about the power you and others in television have--if only because you enter so many people's lives every week?

[A] Winkler: It irritates me that American television does not reproduce life as it is. People in this country really believe that the Anderson family from Father Knows Best is living somewhere in Wisconsin and that they're the norm. They believed that The Millionaire was going to send them money. That's bullshit, but we perpetrate it. As the Church was the opiate for other people, so television is the opiate for Americans. It keeps them all calm. It's a tranquilizer. It subdues them. It is worse than alcohol in that way.

[Q] Playboy: What about your own show? Happy Days surely doesn't represent what high school is or ever was like in this country.

[A] Winkler: We don't profess to do that. We don't say that we're anything other than a half-hour piece of fluff. And, at the moment, that's what I do. I also did a TV special in San Francisco where I spoke with high school kids about teenage alcoholism, suicide and pregnancy.

[Q] Playboy: What about censorship? Does even a "half-hour piece of fluff" have troubles in that area?

[A] Winkler: Yeah, we're censored. But you beat it by double thinking them. They say you can't do this; all right, I'll do that. I'm not angry about it, because the fact is that it exists; it's the framework I have to work in. And if I want to do something else, then I should damn well do it. So I'm doing some movies and we'll see what happens.

[Q] Playboy: How has ABC reacted to your branching out into movies?

[A] Winkler: The ABC people are very nice. They call me up, very cordially, and keep saying, "ABC wants to take you to lunch." So I imagine going out with this big black building. I marvel each time I call the president of Paramount and he gets on the phone. I mean, I talk to the high-powered men now. If the tide happens to turn against me, they will be out of the office more times than not.

[Q] Playboy: So, basically, you get along with industry executives?

[A] Winkler: Some of them. Some, as anywhere in the world, are just assholes. I have always had a great respect for Freddie Silverman, way before he came to ABC. He's got courage and he does it one his own. He left a network that was number one, came to the third network and made it number one. Everything starts with the man at the top.

[Q] Playboy: We read that Gabe Kaplan was complaining about----

[A] Winkler: Gabe Kaplan was complaining. Everybody is complaining! You know why? I'll tell you why. The people who mastermind all this entertainment are not entertainment oriented. They are oriented to power and to money. You are, absolutely, a commodity, and if you let them, they will bulldoze you into oblivion. There is no human respect in this great business of ours.

[Q] Playboy: Sounds like you have seen Network.

[A] Winkler: Yes. I thought it was great. A lot of people in television felt guilty after seeing that film. I didn't. That's not just television Paddy Chayefsky's talking about; he's talking about the world.

[Q] Playboy: One of the things Network satirizes is the rating system. Since it was ratings that put you at the top, would you defend them?

[A] Winkler: The fact is there is a rating system in the world, and that is the way it is. You've got to re-educate human beings to not even think in those terms, which are: I want the biggest, the best, the most, the furriest, the sparkliest, the everything. That's what we live for. The rating system exists all over the place.

[Q] Playboy: You're saying the ratings exist; but what we're asking is----

[A] Winkler: I like being number one. I like being number one!

[Q] Playboy: Will you be renewing your Happy Days contract after it expires next season?

[A] Winkler: I have no idea at this moment. I have done something for five years. That's enough for anybody. My responsibility is to change, to grow. Imagine having an audience that you have turned on, tuned in, saying, "Oh, yeah, he was funny," and turn off? When I become mediocre, it's time to go.

[Q] Playboy: Were you offered another series?

[A] Winkler: I was offered four series. I was offered Serpico, Fonzie the way he is now, Fonzie 15 years later with children and a TV version of The Lords of Flatbush. I was also offered Movies of the Week. They were going to pay me for six months in advance; they said, "Here's $100,000, just keep the spring open, we'll do anything you want."

[Q] Playboy: Why do so many TV actors long to go into the movies? After all, you influence a far greater number of people than Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro and Dustin Hoffman combined.

[A] Winkler: I know that's true. I know that every week in America and Canada, 75,000,000 people see what I do. But, one, your imagination and interpretation are edited on television. Two, there is a snob difference. Three, making films for that big screen--when you remember being younger and sitting in the theater where you first saw movies--it's the ultimate fantasy realized.

[Q] Playboy: Is there anything on TV now--Happy Days excepted--that you like?

[A] Winkler: Well, slowly, things are starting to cook. Peter Boyle's portrayal of Joe McCarthy in Tail Gunner Joe will go down in the annals of incredible performances; Sally Field's performance in Sybil was just great; James Whitmore as Harry Truman was fabulous, Jesus. So television's getting there, but it's still on the profit motive. That's where the big problem is: TV programs are just magnets for commercials. The commercials run the airwaves, and that's a drag.

[Q] Playboy: And you won't do commercials?

[A] Winkler: I made a living doing commercials when I had to. I made 30 commercials. I will do them again. But at this moment, it's not the right thing for my career. Listen, I was just offered $1,000,000 by a major jeans company, my friend--can you dig it?--$1,000,000. In 30 seconds I turned it down, because I cannot do it.

[Q] Playboy: Why? You don't wear the jeans?

[A] Winkler: Not only do I not wear the jeans but it did not sit correctly with me. I never had that much money before, I don't need it now. If I am good, I'll have that money doing what I want to do.

[Q] Playboy: What other commercial offers have you turned down?

[A] Winkler: Somebody offered me an aluminum Rolls-Royce, a collector's item, for a personal appearance. What am I going to do with an aluminum Rolls-Royce? Then I was offered a car just to drive up to a premiere of a movie, get out with my date and go in. I didn't have to say a word. They'd put it on film and use it as a commercial and I would get that particular car, a new one, every year for five years, with all gas and repairs taken care of. But then I have to pervert myself a little bit, you know?

[Q] Playboy: Does money mean anything to you?

[A] Winkler: I love money. But I have money now. I have enough to keep me going for a while. What's really interesting is that people do not understand the word no. It's like they say, "Would you like a villa on the outskirts of Rome? And a car and a maid for the rest of your life? Just for 60 seconds, do this." I say, "No, thank you, I won't do that." "Oh, well, would you like to be Pope for a year? Wear big hats?" It's incredible.

[Q] Playboy: You've railed against the profit motive and commercial endorsements. But what about those Fonzie T-shirts you marketed?

[A] Winkler: What I did was, I went to Paramount and asked them for permission to print up a T-shirt. They gave me permission, but I could only sell it to fans who had written to me. That was the bust, because all those other T-shirts were on the market and they were readily available. But what I was happy about was I sat in my living room and personalized them. Every 1200 shirts, the color changes and my initials are on them somewhere, so they can't be ripped off. A friend of mine helped me design it. We sold 25,000 T-shirts, which is not really a lot in the scope of things. Paramount has made millions and millions and millions and millions off my character.

[Q] Playboy: How much does your T-shirt sell for?

[A] Winkler: Five or six dollars, something like that.

[Q] Playboy: What else have you done in the way of marketing your name?

[A] Winkler: I gave my sister the rights to my autobiography, The Other Side of Henry Winkler, which is really funny, because at 31, who has an autobiography? But, again, everybody else was making all those millions of dollars on that crap they put out. She has three daughters and she'll put them through college. I have no idea how it's selling. But I'm committed to the fact that it was written by my sister. Why should all these strangers make so much money off me? It's like they stick a straw between my shoulder blades and just suck dry, you know.

[Q] Playboy: The next chapter in your life story will involve two feature films. Are you nervous about being able to work in a new medium?

[A] Winkler: What you do to yourself, Oy, Got in Himl! I fucking punch myself from here to Timbuktu. I'm bloody inside. All I want to do is be a good actor. I am in the middle of an anxiety attack. This is my first major motion picture and I am just scared shit. My underwear is brown. I don't know what I'm doing. I always think whatever I'm doing is the hardest thing I've done in my whole life. I truly believe, when I'm doing it, that birth--squeezing through that small crevice--was a snap compared with this.

[Q] Playboy: Is that hyperbole or real fear?

[A] Winkler: There's a fear of showing yourself, of being found out. Am I a fake? Am I good? I don't like to fail. I am scared. But you cannot let that kind of fear paralyze you. You've got to take the risk and see what happens.

[Q] Playboy: Have you managed to break the typecasting syndrome with these two movie roles?

[A] Winkler: Well, the two roles are diametrically opposed. One, in a movie that doesn't have a title yet, is an actor, an outrageous wise guy who becomes a wrestler just to be in front of the crowd; and the other, in Heroes, is a deranged veteran from Vietnam.

[Q] Playboy: But couldn't the character in Heroes be construed as a Fonzie-type character?

[A] Winkler: No, I wouldn't do another Fonzielike character. He's a guy back from Vietnam who's a little touched. He wants to start a worm farm in Eureka, California, with his good friend whom he met in his foxhole. He meets a girl along the way and there is an offbeat love story.

[Q] Playboy: An old acquaintance of yours, Sylvester Stallone, certainly made it big with his movie. What did you think of Rocky?

[A] Winkler: Fabulous. A very dynamic film. I sat there objectively as an actor and said to myself, In about two seconds, the audience will stand up and cheer. And I swear to you, I stood up with them. I could no longer be objective, I was swept right along.

[Q] Playboy: Did you see that promise in Stallone when you worked together in The Lords of Flatbush?

[A] Winkler: He's one of the most original volcanoes I've ever met. He is totally unpredictable. You cannot get too comfortable with Sly; you don't know what's going to happen. But he has a talent that you must reckon with.

[Q] Playboy: He told us that when you were making The Lords of Flatbush, the two of you would sit in the back seat of a car and talk about making it and about your own insecurities. He found you very erudite, always analyzing things.

[A] Winkler: I'm accused of it, yeah. I love to dissect people. It sometimes wraps me into a tight little ball and I have to bounce off the walls to get myself straightened out.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever been in analysis?

[A] Winkler: No.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever thought of it?

[A] Winkler: Analysis? Sometimes. Only because that would be a tool to drain the pus. I think: All these other people are cracking, so maybe I will, too. But I don't think so.

[Q] Playboy: There seems to be an incredible insecurity within the entertainment industry. Do you have any theories about why so many talented people are so unstable?

[A] Winkler: The insecurity comes because some of us are taught, in greater or lesser degrees, that we are no good. And we believe that we are no good. We believe that we are second-rate. That is one of the reasons stars become stars: It enables them to close up the holes that they never worked on themselves. But the rub comes when you become number one in the United States and Canada and Australia and England--and you're exactly where you were when you started! You take your suitcase of craziness with you wherever you go. You are still whatever you think you are.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think that's what happened to Freddie Prinze?

[A] Winkler: It made me angry that Freddie Prinze shot himself.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Winkler: I didn't live his life; I'm trying to live mine. But it made me very angry that he shot himself and blamed it on his wife. I don't think it was his wife. It's a very angry thing to do. It's self-destructive and it says "Up yours!" to people who are left behind.

[Q] Playboy: But, in his case, couldn't it have also been the pressure to perform? He was only 22.

[A] Winkler: I understand that.

[Q] Playboy: Where were you at 22?

[A] Winkler: I was in school. But the thing is, I didn't rearrange my consciousness with drugs, either. What's even sadder than Freddie Prinze is that girl--a fan--who shot herself because she couldn't live without him. She was 13. That says a lot about our culture. Holy moly! That was more shocking to me than his death.

[Q] Playboy: Drugs and 13-year-old girls were in the news not long ago in the case of Roman Polanski. What was your reaction to that?

[A] Winkler: With that 13-year-old girl? The mother said, I OK the photograph, but I didn't OK the rape? It happens all the time. That's just the way it is. Lewis Carroll wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which everybody reads as a classic, and what did he do? He used to take pictures of little girls, too, and seduce them, or try to. It's not a new problem.Roman Polanski does what he has to do. He makes good movies.

[Q] Playboy: You were angry about Prinze but feel no sense of anger about Polanski?

[A] Winkler: For reportedly raping a 13-year-old girl? Thirteen-year-old girls in Hollywood, California, and other places in this country are not 13-year-old girls that we used to know.

[Q] Playboy: What are the differences you see between kids today and when you were that age?

[A] Winkler: I think it's the knowledge input. Kids are much more sophisticated now. They know more, have experienced more. And at 13, they're 29 years old. It's really a bummer. A shame.

[Q] Playboy: When you were younger, what turned you on? Looking at pictures in National Geographic? Playboy? Reading Henry Miller?

[A] Winkler: My sister's friends.

[Q] Playboy: How old were they?

[A] Winkler: Four years older than I was. It's fun for me to see a magazine with a naked lady. On the other hand, anything that I can't put in my mouth for real, why do I want to look at it in ink?

[Q] Playboy: To tickle your imagination, perhaps?

[A] Winkler: We abuse the thought of sex so that it perverts itself. Sex is as natural to human beings as building a nest is to birds. I mean, you know how to do it from the minute you're born; you just have to wait until it all works together. If you feel an urge, if it comes from the depth of your very soul, people should acknowledge that, rather than say, "Oh, no, I'm not horny. I'm not turned on. I don't have an erection at this moment, even though it's busting my zipper loose at the seams. No, I don't desire that woman, I don't see her breasts dripping from her dress." If we didn't deny it so, it wouldn't abuse itself so.

[Q] Playboy: Does any kind of sex turn you off?

[A] Winkler: I don't know. I was in New York City and they had this program on cable television about bondage, sadomasochism. They weren't kidding around. They really tied this guy up to a stool and slapped, beat and kicked him. I was appalled and, after a while, I had to turn it off. I literally could not watch anymore.

[Q] Playboy: Do you have sexual fantasies?

[A] Winkler: I guess so. Except I always must be comfortable. When I imagine people doing it on the beach, I think of all that sand getting in your underwear. Somehow, I always see the practical side and the romance is taken right out of it. Of course, if I had a blow-up mattress on the beach, I could deal with it.

[Q] Playboy: When did you first get into sex?

[A] Winkler: I lost my virginity in summer school, in high school. I was 17. I did not graduate with the rest of my class, because I didn't pass geometry. I failed it (continued on page 136)Playboy Interview(continued from page 71) for three and a half years. I was not a good student. Anyway, I had imagined having sex for a long time. I just couldn't wait for it to happen. This girl came up to me and said, "I don't know whether I like you or I want to go to bed with you." She had braces on her teeth. Her name was Lois. So my knees started to chatter and I said, "Well, I hope it's the latter." Then one day I was at the bus stop and she said, "Can I take the bus with you?" I said, "Sure, it's a free country." So she got off at my stop and we went to my apartment. It was empty because my mother was in the country, my father was at work and my sister was already married. We were in my bedroom. She's sitting on this day bed and I'm sitting on a chair. We're talking. I'm playing Johnny Mathis records, 12 guitars and an open fire, you know? All of a sudden, she stood up and took her belt off and unbuttoned the top of her skirt and, I swear to you, I just thought she was getting comfortable. I didn't know. She said, "Why don't you come over here?" I said, "Ok." And we started to make out. She said, "Would you like me to get undressed?" I said, "Yeah, would you like me to leave the room?"

[A] She took off her clothing and I went behind the curtains and took off mine. And I peeled this prophylactic off my top drawer that had been there since the ninth grade. Went over and sat with her on the bed and I unraveled it and started to pull it on. She said, "No, you leave it rolled and then you pull it on." So I had to roll it back up again. She started giving me instructions and I felt like an idiot. So finally I got it on and it was too big--who knew what to do with it? And then I got on top of her. I thought she was going to give me a signal. I thought, you don't just.... She said, "Well?" I said, "Well what?" "Why don't you put it in?" "Oh, I thought you were going to whistle or something." I was so excited by this time I climaxed outside her and I started laughing, because I was still a virgin.

[A] Then the phone rang and I ran to pick it up. It was my sister. I said, "I can't talk now." She said, "Why?" I said, "I just can't talk to you now." She said, "Do you have a girl there?" I said, "Yeah," with great glee. She said, "Congratulations; now get out there and do your math homework." And that was my first time.

[Q] Playboy: It must have got better for you.

[A] Winkler: Yeah, the second time was a girl at our house in the country. I took her to my room on the third floor. It was the attic, which I had converted into a bedroom. My father was puttering around the room and he would not leave. The fucker! I resented that. Finally, he left. I couldn't believe it. It was like a bad movie. That pissed me off, that he would be so insensitive.

[Q] Playboy: You didn't get along very well with your father then, did you?

[A] Winkler: My father had an image of what he wanted. He wanted me to be a scholar, an athlete, go into his lumber business. He used to say to me in his German accent--I grew up surrounded by my parents' German-immigrant friends--"Who do you think that I built dis business for, who do you think that I brought it over from Germany for?" And my answer was, "Dad, I hope to God you did it for yourself."

[Q] Playboy: Do you ever feel guilty about not having gone into the family business?

[A] Winkler: Sometimes I do. I don't know whether I feel guilty about it, but I think, all right, so the man really worked very hard. But that's what he wanted to do. I'm living my destiny now.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever had a heart-to-heart talk with your father?

[A] Winkler: I've tried. It's very difficult. What happens is the old story that you change and they don't. And then you must go on and accept them, because they mean well. My relationship with them is changing now. My father's 73, my mother's 60 or so. They gave me a good life.

[Q] Playboy: Did they have a definite philosophy of how to raise their children?

[A] Winkler: They had a certain philosophy: The child is seen and not heard. I was very good at occupying myself, playing and keeping myself busy. But when my parents had a dinner party, I used to put on costumes and stage make-up and come out and do two-and-a-half-minute solos. I was very precocious. I would always pick my mother's best-looking friend, whoever it was at the party at the time, and sit on her lap and try to grab some of her breast in a sweeping movement.

[Q] Playboy: How old were you then? Five?

[A] Winkler: Oh, yeah. I was always physically precocious. I had a pretty good fantasy life. I always wanted to be a rock star. I imitated Paul Anka in front of the mirror. Del Shannon. I went to see the play West Side Story three times and I saw the movie 11 times.

[Q] Playboy: Did you actually count?

[A] Winkler: The number? Sure. After you get to a certain number, you're going for the record. Donny Most, an actor on Happy Days, saw Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer 40 times, so mine is nowhere near the record. But West Side Story had a profound effect on my life. I couldn't speak for a week. At parties in high school, I would do songs like Gee, Officer Krupke. I would put the record on and act it out, because I couldn't sing. Where I got the balls to do that, I'll never know. But I did it. I used to choreograph it in my room for hours. I would also go to the theater very often. I went to the German theater with my parents and saw Faust and Phillip the Second with great actors from Germany. And I went to the opera a lot; I love opera. What a form! It's just the farthest, most spaced-out form! It's so big! An opera like Tosca, the music itself will carry you away. Then, as I grew older and more sophisticated, I started imitating Shelley Berman on record at parties. [As Berman] "Ah, hello, sir, there's a man hanging from the ledge. No, no, no, I don't want to talk to the supervisor. Hello, supervisor?"

[Q] Playboy: What came next?

[A] Winkler: Around that time, I went into my sensitive stage. I would sit for hours and become very melancholy. I'd be staring out the window, looking at the moon, smoking short Kents, listening to Frank Sinatra's In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning, which is my all-time favorite album. It is the greatest album to slit your throat by. If you want to put yourself in a despondent, painful mood, it'll conjure up those feelings for you without even trying. Then I got into a phase of writing poetry to different women I was crazy about. I was 15, 16, but that melancholy, grayish-blue mood lasted till I was about 27. I was always ... distraught. I was always ... looking ... wondering ... what? What? What is it? What am I? Where am I?

[Q] Playboy: Getting carried away, we think. Have you saved any of your poems?

[A] Winkler: I have them all. I read them just to humble myself and keep everything in perspective. In 1966, one of the great albums in rock 'n' roll was made: Pet Sounds, by the Beach Boys. Ahead of its time. Even today, it holds up. I would sit there and listen to it and moan, sit on my bed encircled in a knee-high pile of paper and write poetry.

[Q] Playboy: Did you ever know anyone remotely like Fonzie when you were in high school?

[A] Winkler: I never really did, no.

[Q] Playboy: What did you do for excitement?

[A] Winkler: Temple dances. Sometimes I'd walk up and down Broadway looking for a prostitute. Of course, what was most titillating was the fact that possibly you might talk to a whore. You never really went with one. One of the only times I (continued on page 176)Playboy Interview (continued from page 136) ever paid for a whore was the day I got my first Broadway play. I was walking home and I just thought I'd treat myself. Instead of an ice-cream soda.

[Q] Playboy: How was it?

[A] Winkler: I said to myself, Yi, yi, yi, this is really not where it is. It's ... disgusting.

[Q] Playboy: Was there much drinking in high school?

[A] Winkler: A lot of drinking. I never drank. Beer. Even in college, when I belonged to a fraternity, they would chug beer and I would chug water. I don't like alcohol.

[Q] Playboy: Did you like grass any better?

[A] Winkler:I first encountered grass in college and I was violently opposed to it. I thought your soul would disintegrate and drip out your toes. You know, grass is the pits. In the smoker, the common meeting room at the college, I was a junior or senior at the time and there were these freshmen who were stoned all the time and I would be the Billy Graham: "You can't smoke this; if you cannot do things on your own talents, then who are you?" And they're all going, "You don't even know what you're talking about, fella." What I realized from that experience was that the original fear in the world, in our universe, must be of the unknown.

[Q] Playboy: Let's skip ahead to the period after college, when you'd worked in New York and decided to go to Hollywood. How did you feel about it?

[A] Winkler: I was scared.

[Q] Playboy: What image did Hollywood have for you?

[A] Winkler: I felt very defensive about it. New York was better, Hollywood was nothing. That happens to every New Yorker who comes out here. You make all the standard jokes: Hollywood is built on health foods and good vibes; you lie in the sun, you wake up, you're 73. You go through that whole trip. The thing is, it's true--New York is in me; I will never not miss New York. But I have a lovely house in California, I'm very successful doing what I dreamed of doing and it's nice. Hollywood, though, is for the most part a negative city. It's all built on failure. Everybody really wants failure for the other guy, because then there's another notch of success waiting for him. People don't realize that there's enough room for everybody.

[Q] Playboy: After you established yourself in Hollywood, you were seriously involved with actress Jaime Lyn Bauer for about six months. When it was over, she said that while she was very independent, you were very conventional. In what ways are you conventional?

[A] Winkler: I don't know, that's hard. She was independent in that if we had an appointment at 8:30, she would call at 10:30 from somebody else's house to say that everything was OK, that she loved me, but she had to see this person.

[Q] Playboy: Was that what caused you to split up?

[A] Winkler: Um-hmm. That wasn't being independent; that was disrespect.

[Q] Playboy: One of her deepest impressions of you was your insecurity.

[A] Winkler: With her? I have no comment on that.

[Q] Playboy: She said you had no awareness of reality or what goes on in the world.

[A] Winkler: She didn't say that. She didn't say that, I'm telling you.

[Q] Playboy: She's quoted as saying, "He doesn't know what it really means to be alone." Do you need to have friends around to constantly reassure you of who you are?

[A] Winkler: She didn't say that. She couldn't have said that, because my friends sometimes have to come over to get me to go out. I spend a lot of time by myself.

[Q] Playboy: She said that all the publicity you've had will destroy you.

[A] Winkler: She didn't say that.

[Q] Playboy: Is one of the hazards of dating Hollywood women that they will talk?

[A] Winkler: She didn't really talk. Jaime Lyn is a very sensitive, bright lady and those are not the things that she thinks about me. I know that's true. They can't be. Because we would sit in my apartment and discuss what it was to work and what the responsibilities of the actor were.

[Q] Playboy: What effect has your present lady, Stacey, had on your life?

[A] Winkler: Stacey is a completely different human being. My relationship with Stacey is different from any other I've ever had in my life. I'm very lucky. As frightening as an emotional relationship is, I cannot lie about this one: It's changed my life. Calmed me down.

[Q] Playboy: Do you ever discuss marriage?

[A] Winkler: Only in the beginning. It was important for her to understand that I was not ready yet to accept the responsibility.

[Q] Playboy: Is that changing?

[A] Winkler: No.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think you could be faithful to one woman?

[A] Winkler: Yeah, but I must be faithful to myself first. Be faithful to the other person because I want to be, not because it's something I should do. I often think about monogamy and whether it's natural to man.

[Q] Playboy: What about jealousy? Are you a jealous person?

[A] Winkler: If you have a relationship that has substance, there is no jealousy, because you feel secure. The woman can go about her day and her business and you don't give it a second thought. It is when you start to play a manipulative game when you have jealousy and all that other stuff.

[Q] Playboy: What about her side of it? It must be difficult not being jealous of what goes on with you.

[A] Winkler: A woman who is involved with someone in my position has got to be strong as nails. Stacey sees women pull their dresses down and expose their breasts to me and point and wink. She sees all these women blatantly come on to me and she must understand that that's that. That's what they're doing; it has nothing to do with my building a connection between a fan and myself.

[Q] Playboy: Do you ask Stacey to join you on location?

[A] Winkler: She came the first weekend, but what happened was I relaxed too much. I lost the edge. I miss her very much. To just lie on her breasts and let her hold me and me hold her. But this work is too critical.

[Q] Playboy: What do you do now for excitement besides your work?

[A] Winkler: Work is very exciting; when I go home, I don't need excitement. I went to Bora-Bora and that was exciting. I take drives. I bought this little remote-control race car. I like going to recording sessions of the Funky Kings, watching them evolve a song. I liked winning the Golden Globe.

[Q] Playboy: What does winning something like the Golden Globe mean to you?

[A] Winkler: Let it be known, I was excited to win that. I just got a Man of the Year Award from the International Broadcaster's Association and I thought that was great. And I just got an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Emerson College. I'm the youngest man ever to receive that.

[Q] Playboy: It's all happened pretty fast for you, hasn't it?

[A] Winkler:So fast! And who can you tell about the fabulous things that happen to you? Nobody wants to hear it anymore. You know what I wish? I wish I had the power to see what was really happening to me--as if from outer space. I know that in years to come, I'm going to sit with my kids and go, "Let me tell you about this time in my life. I didn't realize it then, but, boy...." I wish I could visualize it--in fact, that's why I try to feel it now, by cheering along with the crowd--so I won't have to live in my own future.

"When I was King of Mardi Gras, I was told I had more security than the President of the United States. I could walk no farther than 50 feet."

"Every time I turn around, I see myself. I look in store windows, on T-shirts, on fans' chests, on their legs, everywhere, I see myself."

"I was just offered $1,000,000 by a major jeans company, my friend--can you dig it?--$1,000,000. In 30 seconds I turned it down."

"What you do to yourself, Oy, Got in Himl! I fucking punch myself from here to Timbuktu. I'm bloody inside. This is my first major motion picture and I'm scared shit."

"One of the only times I paid for a whore was the day I got my first Broadway play. I just thought I'd treat myself. Instead of an ice-cream soda."