Didi Conn recently shared how her unexpected encounter with Henry Winkler came with the biggest opportunity.
While promoting her new campaign for Laura Geller Beauty, the 74-year-old American actress opened up about crossing paths unexpectedly with Winkler and the door of opportunity it opened for her in a talk with PEOPLE magazine.
Conn told the outlet that she always gives credit to the legendary American actor and director for securing the one-off role of Joyce in the sophomore season of Happy Days, which aired in April 1975.
She said, “Well, this is such a crazy thing. I was doing a lot of commercials when I first started in New York, and a lot of times you’re thrown into a room and somebody’s got to be your husband or you’re on your honeymoon with some guy, [something] like that.”
Soon after the Grease star was done with one audition, she took an elevation and found herself with a man who looked familiar.
Conn recalled, “And I’m coming down an elevator after an audition and I look at this guy, I say, ‘Hey, how are you?’ And he looks at me, he says, ‘Oh, I’m good. How are you?’ And it was about 16 floors. By the time we got to the bottom, he says, ‘You want to have some coffee?’ I said, ‘Sure.’”
At that time, “I was sure that I knew him, maybe played my husband or something,” the Shining Time Station actress quipped, adding that they eventually sat down and she said, “So what [have] you been up to? And he says, ‘Well, Happy Days.’”
It was the moment when she realized she “had seen him on Happy Days — it was Henry Winkler. I didn’t know.”
“I had just said, ‘Well, this is where acting comes in.’ And we talked and talked and I said, ‘Hey, you know, I’m moving to California in a couple of months.’ He says, ‘Here’s my number, call me,’” Conn said.
Just days after she reached California, she “got an audition for Happy Days, it was my first audition. So, I called him to tell him.”
The Best Medicine alum remembered, “When I went to Paramount and I was shown to the office where the audition was, guess who was there and he read with me? I didn’t find out right away that I got the part, but when I walked away and I’m on the Paramount lot, this Brooklyn girl looking around. I called up my agent and they had heard that I got it.”
“I was so happy and I thanked Henry, and we stayed very good friends,” Didi Conn stated.
It is pertinent to mention that Happy Days, a television sitcom that aired on ABC from January 1974 to July 1984 with a total of 255 half-hour episodes spanning 11 seasons, cast Henry Winkler as Fonzie.
About The Author
