Henry Winkler visited Milwaukee last week, delivering a motivational speech while telling his life story to a captivated audience at the Milwaukee Oriental Theater on an Oct. 23 stop of his book tour.
The audience packed into the main theater and nearly every seat was full of fans who anticipated hearing from the Hollywood legend whose likeness graces the streets of Milwaukee’s “Bronze Fonz.”
Winkler has reached multiple generations through his breakthrough work on “Happy Days,” to his other many supporting comedic roles, an Emmy-winning role on Barry and the children’s books he has authored. Fans of every generation attended the event, despite his most famous work airing decades ago.
The actor/author started the night taking the audience back to his roots growing up in New York as the child of two Jewish immigrants that escaped Nazi Germany.
At a young age, Winkler said he had dreams of acting even though his parents would rather see him take over the family business.
“If people were born to do something, I was born to try to be an actor,” Winkler said.
Later in the speech, he joked that once he was successful his parents would tell everyone they were the parents of the Fonz, and he would later meet people that had gotten autographs from his parents.
He shared his struggle to learn as a child and earn passing grades. This was an issue that Winkler attributed to his dyslexia, which he said went undiagnosed until he was 31.
There were many stories shared about the actor’s family and Winkler shared how important it was for him as a father to validate his children’s dreams after not receiving that treatment as a child.
“We have to be the most that we can be to take care of every child,” said Winkler.
Winkler gave a captivating speech with animated hand and body gestures that kept the audience engaged with his lesson, story and very funny material through the entire half-hour speech.
The speech ended with Winkler driving home the importance of gratitude and never allowing negative thoughts to win.
“Don’t put a period on the end of a negative thought,” Winkler said. “You say, ‘I’m sorry I’ve got no time for you right now.’”
He shared that it was crucial for his journey to just go for his dreams without thought as to what could go wrong.
“I was told I could never really meet my dream,” Winkler said, “but I never let my dream out of my mind.”
After the speech, there was a Q&A session that included some audience members who shared the personal connections they had with the actor.
In a special moment, one audience member took their opportunity to ask a question as a chance to get the whole audience together to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to Winkler, as the actor had mentioned it was at the end of the month.
Another member of the audience was a local grade school teacher who asked for some advice to give to their students.
In response, Winkler said, “No matter how difficult it is to learn, it has nothing to do with how brilliant they are.”
Winkler also took the chance to stop and take a picture with the Bronze Fonz located on Milwaukee’s Riverwalk earlier in the day.
“What an honor it is to have a statue in a town that has adopted me,” Winkler said.
Along with the ticket purchased for this Boswell Book Company-sponsored tour event, the audience received a free unsigned copy of “Being Henry: The Fonz… and Beyond” which is currently available for purchase.
