Actor Henry Winkler opens up about life and career, struggle with dyslexia in new memoir

Emmy Award-winning actor Henry Winkler is opening up about his life and career in a new memoir hitting shelves this week.

In “Being Henry: The Fonz…And Beyond,” the 78-year-old actor tells his story from the very beginning -- taking readers through his childhood, to landing his iconic role as “The Fonz” in the hit sitcom “Happy Days” to playing the worst lawyer in the world on “Arrested Development,” and scoring his first Emmy Award for his portrayal of Gene Cousineau, a peculiar acting coach in HBO’s “Barry.”

In the book, Winkler’s story is paired with reflections from his wife, Stacey, detailing their beginning and where Winkler is now as a husband, father and grandfather. Winkler also reveals his own personal struggles, including his fight with imposter syndrome and being diagnosed with dyslexia at the age of 31.

Winkler spoke to ABC News’ Linsey Davis about the book and the message he hopes it will impart on readers.

HENRY WINKLER: I never resented playing the Fonz. I would do it again, just like that, in a minute. What I what I had to learn was, I'm now typecast. I thought I could beat that.

LINSEY DAVIS: You move to L.A. Within a few weeks, you land the role of Fonz.

WINKLER: Two! Two weeks.

DAVIS: Two weeks!

WINKLER: I was there, the first week I got the “Mary Tyler Moore Show” -- which was, bless his soul, Matthew [Perry] -- but it was [the] “Friends” of that time. And the very next week, I auditioned for a brand new series, which I was stupid enough to think, you know, “I was trained for the theater. I don't know if I want do this series.”

DAVIS: Oh, it was below you, “Happy Days”?

WINKLER: It was below me, until it became -- above me.

DAVIS: 2018, after 43 years in the industry, you get that Emmy. Tell us about that moment and what it to meant you.

WINKLER: If you listen carefully, you hear, “This is Henry Winkler's 2000th nomination, his first win.” My tush actually left the chair. I run down that aisle. I am in heaven. I have 39 seconds to give that speech. I don't want to leave anybody out, because when you say thank you, you do not get there by yourself. You get there with people blowing into your sail.

DAVIS: You write about that you “were still chasing the cool kids, never imagining I could be anything like cool myself.

WINKLER: You know where that comes from? My self-image was down around my ankles. You feel less than. So just because an artificial layer is put on you, which is fame. As long as it’s sunny, you’re having a great time.

DAVIS: How did you early on navigate having a difficulty reading those scripts -- and you're on?

WINKLER: I had to work harder than the average bear. Sitting around any project that I did, sitting around that first reading of the script with the entire cast, completely covered my shame with humor, because I stumbled. I just couldn't read.

Reading to my children at night when they were babies, I would fall asleep before they did. My eyes got so tired and heavy, and the words were moving and I just -- my wife read them the book, I acted it out. That was my job.

DAVIS: And you didn’t get the diagnosis [of dyslexia] until you were 31, which you talk about in the memoir. Was there a sense of relief?

WINKLER: The first stage was anger. All that humiliation, all that punishment, all that expectation was for nothing. My brain was wired differently. And the people who were yelling at me [and] who punished me gave it to me, because it's hereditary.

DAVIS: You talked about how your dad tricked your mom [in] 1939, leaving Berlin, coming to the United States. And you write about your relatives who were left behind, who you never saw again. You write, “I mourned that I never had relatives. My only relatives were faux-members of the German refugee community in New York.” Why was it important for you to tell your own story, but theirs as well?

WINKLER: Because they are part of my story. I am their experience.

DAVIS: Anything else that you still have not done that you really want to do?

WINKLER: I have no idea what tomorrow will bring. I don’t know. But I do know this, what I have learned, what I have tried to pass on “Being Henry” is, oh how wonderful it is just around the corner. And I have now gotten to the point where I am willing to try whatever that is.