Back to school for grandad Fonz

The dyslexic Henry Winkler's school years were not happy days, but the actor formerly known as Fonzie is back in class in Dublin with a positive story to share, he tells KEVIN COURTNEY.

HEEEYYY! Listen up, kids. The Fonz is back, and he's coming to your school. Happy days! Actor Henry Winkler, known to a generation as Fonzie, the leather-clad rebel in 1970s sitcom Happy Days, is in Dublin this weekend to launch the latest in his series of books for children, Hank Zipzer: Help! Somebody Get Me Out of Fourth Grade!. The Hank Zipzer series, about a 10-year-old boy with dyslexia, addresses issues of learning difficulties with a mixture of zany humour, gentle empathy and an understanding of what grabs a young person's imagination.

Hank Zipzer, “the world’s greatest underachiever”, is a sort of Harry Potter for kids with learning difficulties. In each book, he faces a seemingly insurmountable task that appears beyond his academic powers, and sets out to solve the problem with a mixture of street smarts, resourcefulness and blind luck. Hank has already been a huge success in the US, where he’s now into his 15th full-length adventure, but young readers on this side of the Atlantic are getting to know him too, while many who suffer from learning difficulties are feeling that perhaps they’re not so alone after all.

Winkler knows whereof he writes. Like his youthful protagonist, the young Henry had a tough time at school, flunking all subjects and covering up by becoming the class clown.

“Teachers didn’t know what dyslexia was at the time,” says New York-born Winkler, who was branded a troublemaker and informed by his teachers that he’d never amount to anything.

Now 64 and having amounted to quite a bit, Winkler is eager to visit schools and tell kids something he was never told: that they're worth it. In the past couple of weeks, he's been visiting schools and bookshops in the UK and Ireland, and today he's dropping in on St Patrick's Boys' School and Carysfort National School in Blackrock to bring the Zipzer gospel to the kids of south Dublin. Tomorrow, he's signing books in Easons on O'Connell Street, appearing on Tubridy Tonightand, he hopes, visiting a pub to hear traditional music.

He summarises a typical school visit: “The entire school is gathered in the gym, and I come in and say: ‘Hi, kids, how are you?’ I talk to them about Hank Zipzer, about my dyslexia and about my learning challenges. I read some stuff from the book, and then I sign my book and we all laugh together. I tell them, look, I was told I would never achieve anything, but I became an actor, a director, a producer, a writer, even though I was in the bottom 3 per cent academically.”

For 10 years, between 1974 and 1984, Winkler was known the world over as The Fonz. When Happy Daysended, he found work behind the camera, producing adventure series MacGyverin the 1980s and directing forgotten movies for Burt Reynolds and Billy Crystal.

He returned to acting in the 1990s, landing a regular role in the TV series, Arrested Development, and getting parts in such films as Scream, Little Nickyand You Don't Mess with the Zohan. He's also guested on such shows as South Park, Numb3rsand Family Guy. Last year, he reprised his role as Fonz, appearing with his Happy Daysco-star Ron Howard in a video encouraging people to vote for Barack Obama. Fonzie has also been strutting his stuff in the stage musical version of Happy Days, but it's not Winkler up there – it's young star Joey Sorge playing the iconic mechanic.

Winkler and his wife, Stacy, have been together for 30 years. Their youngest son, Max, is a director, and daughter Zoe is an actor. Their eldest, Jed (Winkler’s stepson from Stacy’s previous marriage). is about to have his first child (“I’m going to be a grandad!”).

Although Winkler never really shook himself free of Fonzie’s leather jacket, his latest fictional creation has liberated him. “Everywhere I go, whether here or at home, the response to Hank Zipzer is the same,” he says. “I was told that the English kids wouldn’t get Hank, but they identify with him . . . Kids are clued into comedy and clued into being genuine, and that’s what I’m looking for. I don’t care if they don’t know me for what I’ve done – it’s about Hank Zipzer.”

WINKLER RECENTLY learned that an award had been created in his name to honour teachers who go out of their way to help children with learning difficulties. He’s been touring the UK in the company of Nicky Cox, co-founder and editor of award-winning children’s newspaper First News.

“It doesn’t talk down to children, and it also publishes news reports sent in by kids. It doesn’t matter what they write about – if it’s good, they’ll print it,” he says.

Winkler had never considered being an author until a meeting with writer Lin Oliver in 2002 convinced him he should give it a go. Oliver is his co-writer on the Hank Zipzer books – they meet each morning in her office, where Winkler paces the room, tossing out ideas while Oliver catches them on her keyboard. Sometimes, Winkler will arrive with handwritten passages for Oliver to key in ("I don't use a computer"). Their only hard and fast rule is: "If we don't make each other laugh, it doesn't go in the book." So far, the pair have published 15 Hank Zipzer books in the US, including Barfing in the Backseat, The Curtain Went Up, My Pants Fell Downand I Got a D in Salami.

Winkler is still open to TV and movie offers, and has Baywatchstar David Hasselhoff to thank for getting him his first panto (when the Hoff dropped out of Peter Panin London in 2006, Winkler stepped in as Captain Hook).

As for his best-known role, Winkler lets us in on a secret: Fonzie might have been dyslexic too, and that famous attitood could have been a front.

“Oh, sure, he had learning difficulties. That’s why we had him finishing night school.”