Book Review — Plethora Reading Challenge

Being Henry: The Fonz…and Beyond

My thoughts on the audiobook version of Henry Winkler’s 2023 autobiography

Actors Adam Sandler and Henry Winkler have worked together multiple times and have become very good friends over the years. I recently watched an interview with Adam on Jimmy Kimmel’s show, in which Adam talked about what it was like working with Henry for the first time, which was in the 1998 movie The Waterboy.

At one point, Adam and Jimmy discussed how incredibly popular Henry was when they were children because it was at that time in the 1970s that Henry was playing the character Arthur Fonzarelli (also known as ‘Fonzie’ or ‘The Fonz’) on the highly-rated TV series Happy Days.

They said that there was no one cooler or more admired than him at the time. Sandler compared the popularity of The Fonz back then to the popularity of Taylor Swift today.

Adam Sandler, Jimmy Kimmel, and I are all right around the same age, so I can very much relate to what they were saying. I’ve been a big fan of The Fonz and Henry Winkler since Happy Days premiered in 1974.

I watched it every week until it went off the air in 1984. Within those 10 years, I had a couple of Fonzie posters, a Fonzie action figure (with a thumb you could raise to give a ‘thumbs up!), a Fonzie t-shirt, and a Happy Days lunchbox with images on it of The Fonz and other characters from the show.

I was also a big fan of Henry’s work in movies during the time he did Happy Days. My favorites among them are Heroes, The One and Only (a VERY underrated movie), and Night Shift.

Since Happy Days ended, I’ve continued to follow his career as an actor, a director, a producer, and a writer. I even met him once at a book signing for one of his Hank Zipzer books.

He’s always had a reputation for being a very nice person and I’m happy to say I witnessed it in person when I chatted with him for a minute or so. He couldn’t have been any nicer to me that day.

When it was announced early last year that Henry’s autobiography, Being Henry: The Fonz…and Beyond was going to be released in November 2023, my wonderful wife Lisa immediately pre-ordered a hardback copy of the book for me as a gift.

When we later discovered that there was also going to be an audiobook version of it and Henry Winkler was going to be doing the narration himself, we immediately canceled the pre-order of the physical book and pre-ordered the audiobook version instead.

After all, what could be better than listening to a great actor like Henry Winkler reading his story himself, right?

I’m happy to say that I was completely thrilled with it. While I’m sure that I would have also been thrilled with reading the book instead of listening to it, I’m glad I listened to it.

Like most autobiographies, this one begins in the author’s childhood — which wasn’t a particularly easy one. His parents were very difficult in many ways. Unfortunately for Henry, this was something that was going to continue well into his adult years.

I was actually a little surprised with how open Henry Winkler was in the book about the anger he often felt toward his parents. He’s also very open elsewhere in the book regarding how he feels about other people who badly mistreated him — particularly a well-known television director and producer he had the misfortune of working with for several years.

I don’t want to give the impression, though, that this book is only full of stories about Henry angrily calling out people who did him wrong in his life. It’s quite the opposite of that! Thankfully for him, most of Henry’s life seems to have been very happy. The majority of the book focuses on uplifting and happy stories about his career, his wife, his children, his friends, etc.

However, he is very honest here and it’s not just happy things he shares. Yes, he shares stories about how nice his life was when Happy Days became a hit, but he also shares stories about the many very difficult years he had after Happy Days when he was typecast as The Fonz and struggled to find acting jobs.

He also covers the sort of ‘comeback’ he has experienced as an actor in the last decade or so, including stories about the multiple films he’s done with Adam Sandler and about his recent award-winning work in the HBO series Barry.

Henry also tells very personal stories about some difficulties he and his wife Stacey have dealt with together in their 45+ years of marriage — including her battle with cancer.

There are also multiple points in the audiobook where Stacey takes over the narration and shares her side of things. As a reader and listener, it was nice to learn her perspective on some of the things she and Henry have gone through together.

Henry Winkler’s narration throughout the book was wonderful. When he shared parts of his story that were sad or painful for him, I could hear — and feel — the sadness and pain in his voice. Conversely, when he shared happier stories, I could hear and feel the heartfelt joy within him.

The whole listening experience sort of felt like I was sitting with an old friend who was pouring out his heart to me.

The only small issue I have with the book regards the section in which Henry wrote about his work on the Barry series. He shares some very pivotal things related to multiple storylines throughout the series.

Even though I’ve wanted to watch Barry, I still haven’t done so. When I do finally watch it, a little bit of the mystery will be gone for me and I won’t be as surprised as I would have liked to have been, had I not first learned about those things in the book.

Still, that’s a very tiny complaint from me. It does nothing to take away from how much I loved Being Henry: The Fonz…and Beyond.

It was one of my favorite reads of 2023 and I’d also say that it was one of the most enjoyable memoirs I’ve ever read.

If you’ve ever been a fan of Henry Winkler, I highly recommend this book to you.

NOTE: I had already been planning on writing this review before my friend Kerry Purvis created Plethora of Pop’s 2024 Reading Challenge. Conveniently for me, two of the categories in the challenge are:

a biography or memoir a book by an actor or musician

Since Being Henry: The Fonz…and Beyond falls into both of those categories, I happily submit my above review as my first entry in the challenge. If you’re a book lover and want to learn more about the reading challenge, please click below:

Thank you for reading! If you’d like to connect with me outside of Medium, you can also find me on X, Substack, YouTube, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, and Goodreads. I’m also the host of the GOTTA POP podcast. Links to all of those things can be found here.