Henry Winkler 20 Things You Didnt Know
Henry Winkler, who has dyslexia, has spent his life struggling to read books. "It never dawned on me that I would accept my name on a book," Winkler tells NPR'south Michel Martin. Christopher Polk/NBC/NBCU Photograph Banking company via Getty Images hide caption
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Christopher Polk/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
Henry Winkler, who has dyslexia, has spent his life struggling to read books. "Information technology never dawned on me that I would have my proper noun on a book," Winkler tells NPR's Michel Martin.
Christopher Polk/NBC/NBCU Photo Banking company via Getty Images
You may know Henry Winkler equally The Fonz from Happy Days or the "very good" Bluth family unit lawyer from Arrested Evolution. Or perhaps, more recently, for his Emmy-winning part every bit the eccentric acting coach Cistron Cousineau on the HBO comedy series Barry.
Just what Winkler is about proud of is, he says, may be his least recognized torso of work: his all-time-selling children'south book series Here's Hank, which follows the adventures and struggles of a dyslexic kid named Hank Zipzer. Winkler, who has dyslexia himself, pulls from his own experiences to write the serial forth with Lin Oliver.
"It never dawned on me that I would have my name on a book," Winkler says in an interview with NPR's Michel Martin. Reflecting on a life with dyslexia, he says that until relatively recently, "I idea I was stupid ... You take that mantle with you when information technology'southward said often plenty and when you're young enough. At that place is an emotional component, I think, that comes forth with learning challenges, where I had no sense of self."
Everybody Is Somebody
Winkler, now 73, says he didn't know he had a learning inability until age 31, when he got his stepson tested and evaluated for dyslexia. "I went 'Oh my goodness, that's me,' Winkler says. "Then at 31, I found out I wasn't stupid, that I wasn't lazy — that I had something with a proper noun."
The discovery brought relief, simply anger too. As a student, Winkler'southward parents would arraign his underachievement on laziness that could be remedied with long hours at a desk. "I was grounded 97 percent of my high school career," says Winkler. "I saw the moon through the window."
Merely those early on hardships, Winkler says, would motivate him to non just succeed, merely to appreciate his differences enough to write a book to help brainwash others. "It gave me fight," he says. "It gave me understanding that information technology doesn't matter. There is not one road to get where you want to go. There is your route."
For years, Winkler paved his ain winding route with improvisation and memorization to forge the appearance of keeping up.
His reading disorder compounded the pressure level he felt during auditions. "I would memorize equally speedily as I could considering I couldn't read the page and act at the same time to make an impression on the casting person or on the director and the producers," he says. "And I improvised the rest. And when they said, 'Well you're non doing what's written on the page,' I said, 'I'chiliad giving you the essence of the character.' "
Humor was another coping mechanism. Decades ago, Monday mornings were when the Happy Days cast would hold their table-reads, the player says. "I was embarrassed for 10 years because I could non read what was on the page. So I used sense of humour to cover all those mistakes for all those years. I didn't know that I had something wrong, so I only tripped over words and everybody simply kind of tolerated information technology."
That innate sense of humor, an outgrowth of adversity, hasn't gone to waste. With the Hank Zipzer serial, Winkler says, "We set out to write comedies that happen to exist most a kid who had a challenge, just they were funny first. If we didn't make each other laugh, Lin and I, information technology wouldn't get in the book."
And even so for all of the serial' success, it almost didn't happen at all. Winkler says that when his amanuensis starting time floated the idea of a book about his learning challenges, he didn't think it would piece of work.
"I said, 'I tin't do that, I'm stupid, I can't write a book,' " Winkler remembers. But when his amanuensis introduced him to writer Oliver, executive director of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, he says, they hatched the idea of Hank Zipzer. "This was just something that I was going to try," he says.
More than fifteen years later on, what began every bit a manner for Winkler to fill a lull in his acting career has turned into 29 books.
Winkler says the books are written to account for the many nuances of dyslexia. As he explains, the condition looks different in different people. "Some people, it works on their ability to read and do math, to really write a sentence. Some people write backwards. When you're reading, you miss words, they drop off the folio or the words start pond."
With these challenges in mind, the books contain ample white space on each page, and it's written in the Dyslexie font, a typeface created past Dutch designer Christian Boer to improve legibility for the dyslexic encephalon.
"What I have plant over the years talking to kids today nearly it is that our journeys are similar," Winkler says. "The feeling of inadequacy, of embarrassment, of, 'Oh my gosh, am I going to have a future?' "
Winkler's books tin assist respond that question.
On a visit to Pennsylvania, a 20-something working every bit a hotel bellhop who recognized the writer rushed over — non to help Winkler and his married woman with their luggage — but to let him know: "I've read every one of your Hank Zipzer'southward!"
Winkler calls information technology "one of the greatest compliments, probably ever, in my life."
The final installment of the Hank Zipzer series, "Everybody Is Somebody," comes out this week.
NPR's Elizabeth Baker produced this story for broadcast. Denise Couture edited.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2019/01/27/689070922/dyslexia-made-henry-winkler-feel-stupid-for-years-now-he-s-a-best-selling-author
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