The 80-year-old actor recalls his struggles in Hollywood after the long-running ABC sitcom went off the air in 1984.

Henry Winkler ‘went dark’ after Happy Days ended

The 80-year-old actor recalls his struggles in Hollywood after the long-running ABC sitcom went off the air in 1984.

By Kathleen Perricone

June 17, 2026 4:41 p.m. ET

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Henry Winkler as The Fonz on 'Happy Days' in 1975. Credit:

- Henry Winkler says he "went dark" when *Happy Days* ended in 1984 after 11 seasons.

- His character, Fonzie, was a fan-favorite, which led him to being typecast for years.

- Winkler's Hollywood career turned around when he became a successful producer with *MacGyver*.

When *Happy Days* ended in 1984, Henry Winkler wondered if he had "jumped the shark" just like Fonzie.

For 11 seasons, he played Richie Cunningham's biker friend Arthur Fonzarelli, a fan-favorite on the ABC sitcom and one of the most merchandised television characters of the 1970s. But after the show went off the air, Winkler couldn't escape being typecast.

"All I'm getting are Fonzie-like [offers],' the 80-year-old actor recalled to Ted Danson on the latest episode of his podcast, *Where Everybody Knows Your Name*. "I have no idea, 'Am I ever going to do anything that is as powerful?' And I went dark. I went dark. I thought, 'I have no idea what I'm going to do, whether I could do it again, and I'm over.'"

The cast of 'Happy Days'.

ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty

As he feared, Winkler wasn't cast in a single thing for the next decade. But as his acting career came to a standstill, a new door opened in Hollywood and bestowed "all of this generous stardust."

Winkler's lawyer, Skip Brittenham III, who also represented Danson early in his career, offered to start a production company for the *Happy Days* alum.

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"I said, 'I can't do that. I don't understand one thing about producing or the business. I only know how to do what I'm doing,'" Winkler recalled. But Brittenham had faith that his client would "learn."

And learn, he did — the first show Winkler ever produced was the 1980s sleeper hit, *MacGyver*, starring Richard Dean Anderson as the resourceful secret agent who could solve any problem in 60 minutes or less.

Over the action-adventure series' seven seasons, Winkler also MacGyver'd his career as a successful producer.

"You learn, 'there are things I can do; there are things I can't do.' But then there are wonderful people who do what I can't do," he explained to Danson. Playing to his own strengths, Winkler focused on editing the episodes, often working until 3 a.m. on Sundays so he could deliver the final cut to the network in time for *MacGyver*'s scheduled airtime of Monday at 8 p.m.

Living by his mantra, "If you will it, it is not a dream," the producer-actor pivoted again to directing. Beginning with a one-time gig on the *Happy Days* spinoff *Joanie Loves Chachi* in 1982, Winkler went on to helm Dolly Parton's TV movie *A Smoky Mountain Christmas* and a few episodes of shows like *Sabrina the Teenage Witch* and ABC's adaptation of *Clueless*.

"My directing career is like a lawn mower that you pull that never turns over," he joked. "And eventually, I just cut the cord."

As an actor, Winkler made his comeback in the 1996 horror flick *Scream* — in an uncredited role, however, so "The Fonz" didn't detract from the film's integrity. In 2000, he earned an Emmy nomination for his three-episode arc on *The Practice*, a legal drama.

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Winkler made his way back to comedy in a slew of film and TV projects, like Adam Sandler's *The Waterboy* and *Arrested Development* in a recurring role as incompetent lawyer Barry Zuckerkorn.

Most recently, he won his first Emmy (and three Golden Globes nominations) for playing Bill Hader's mentor, eccentric acting coach Gene Cousineau, for four seasons on HBO's *Barry*.

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Comedy”