The path to fame for Henry Winkler was not an easy one.
His parents punished him severely because he did not perform well in school, and eventually the taunts and name-calling—things he swore he would never do to his own children—started to wear him down.
Decades passed before he discovered the cause of his struggles, and realizing how much it had harmed him, he wanted to utilize his condition to motivate others, especially young people.

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Even though Winkler is a skilled actor, he did not get there easily. He really had to put in a lot of work to achieve all of his successes.
And it all started when he was a young boy.
Winkler was held to high standards from the beginning, particularly in terms of his education.
“My parents were extremely short Jews from Germany,” Winkler said in an interview with The Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity. They thought that education was important. They believed me to be indolent. Someone labeled me sluggish. Someone called me dumb. I was informed that I wasn’t reaching my full potential.
However, Winkler didn’t think his parents were telling the truth. He believed he was making all effort possible.
“I want to avoid being foolish.”
Winkler struggled mightily in school, attempting almost every trick in the book, and as a result, not only did his parents chastise him, but he was also barred from taking part in school plays and dances.
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“For the majority of my time in high school, I was grounded. They believed that if I worked at my desk for six weeks at a stretch, I would eventually understand and they would simply stop making fun of my ridiculous indolence. That was the end of it.

Winkler persevered through his high school hardships to earn an MFA from Yale University.
Nevertheless, following graduation, he encountered some problems once more. Reading scripts was really challenging.
“You learn to negotiate with your learning challenge. I improvised. I never read anything the way that it was written in my entire life.”
“I could instantly memorize a lot of it and then what I didn’t know, I made up and threw caution to the wind and did it with conviction and sometimes I made them laugh and sometimes I got hired,” he said.
Although he eventually was cast as Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli in Happy Days, he admitted he struggled during table reads.
“When we did Happy Days, I embarrassed myself for 10 years reading around that table with the producers, the other actors, the director, all of the department heads. On Monday morning, we read the scripts. I stumbled over every word. I was completely embarrassed. Memorizing, if it’s written well, my brain is then able to suck it up like a vacuum cleaner.”

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It wasn’t until his stepson began struggling in school and was tested for a learning disability that Winkler considered he too might have dyslexia.
“I went, ‘Oh my goodness. I have something with a name.’ That was when I first got it.”
Winkler was 31 years old at the time.

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“I didn’t read a book until I was 31 years old when I was diagnosed with dyslexia. Books terrified me. They made me nervous,” he said.
After learning his struggles with reading were due to a learning disability, Winkler became angry.
“I got very angry. Because all of the arguments in my house with the short Germans who were my parents were for naught. All of the grounding was for naught.”
But then he used his diagnosis to inspire others, especially children, and he did it by writing a children’s series featuring a boy named Hank, an elementary school student with dyslexia.
The series has connected with many as Winkler said he often receives letters from children.
“Every child who writes me a letter about Hank Zipzer, I write back. In every letter I include, ‘your learning challenge will not stop you from meeting your dream. Only you will stop yourself from meeting your dream.’”

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While he still struggles with his learning challenge, Winkler has gone on to achieve much success. In addition to winning numerous awards for his Hollywood career, he has written several books, and it was just recently announced his memoir would be released in 2024.
Even though he has accomplished so much, he said, “Outside of my family, my proudest moment, no matter what I have achieved, are the books.”
Henry Winkler is an inspiration. Imagine constantly being put down by your parents because you weren’t as successful as they would have liked, only to later learn you had dyslexia.
I’m so glad he was able to overcome his challenges and be an inspiration for others who share similar struggles.