Henry Winkler got to know of dyslexia at 31, felt 'embarrassed' before diagnosis

Actor Henry Winkler is finally opening up about his days of struggle as he rose to fame with the popular comedy series, Happy Days. The popular comedy series ran for 11 seasons and while he made a name for himself as Arthur ‘Fronzie’ Fonzarelli on Happy Days, he struggled with dyslexia. It was not until he was 31 that he found out about his dyslexia. In his memoir, he reveals that while he read for the show with his peers, it was a struggle to keep up.

In an excerpt from his upcoming memoir, Being Henry: The Fonz… and Beyond, via People magazine, the actor said, “Even in the midst of Happy Days, at the height of my fame and success, I felt embarrassed, inadequate,” he wrote. “Every Monday at ten o’clock, we would have a table reading of that week’s script, and at every reading I would lose my place, or stumble. I would leave a word out, a line out. I was constantly failing to give the right cue line, which would then screw up the joke for the person doing the scene with me. Or I would be staring at a word, like “invincible,” and have no idea on earth how to pronounce it or even sound it out.”

Winkler continued, “My brain and I were in different zip codes. Meanwhile, the other actors would be waiting, staring at me: it was humiliating and shameful. Everybody in the cast was warm and supportive, but I constantly felt I was letting them down. I had to ask for my scripts really early, so I could read them over and over again- which put extra pressure on the writers, who were already under the gun every week, having to get twenty-four scripts ready in rapid succession. All this at the height of my fame and success, as I was playing the coolest guy in the world.”

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It was only later when his stepson was diagnosed with dyslexia that Winkler realised that he might also have the learning disorder.

Winkler continues in his memoir, “All the misery I’d gone through had been for nothing. All the yelling, all the humiliation, all the screaming arguments in my house as I was growing up – for nothing… It was genetic! It wasn’t the way I decided to be! And then I went from feeling this massive anger to fighting through it.”

Ever since the diagnosis, Henry Winkler has been very vocal about his life with dyslexia. He has written two children’s books, Here’s Hank and Hank Zipzer, the World’s Greatest Underachiever. Meanwhile, Winkler’s memoir, Being Henry: The Fonz… and Beyond, will be released this month.