‘Happy Days’ Alum Henry Winkler Reveals the Surprising Way He Helped Save a 17-Year-Old’s Life

Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli was an antihero on the ’70s ABC sitcom Happy Days, but his portrayer, Henry Winkler, was a straight-up hero in real life.

The actor saved a fan’s life. “We’re on the set of Happy Days, and the phone all of a sudden rings. It’s a police officer somewhere in the Midwest,” Henry, 79, recalled to Fox News Digital. “A young man is on the ledge wanting to jump, but before he jumps he wants to talk to me.”

The 17-year-old was ready to end his life because he was struggling to become an actor. Henry told the teen, “I was 27 when I got the Fonz, John. You’ve got 10 good years to keep trying. Will you do that?”

Henry didn’t know if that would work, so he had another idea. “I said to him the first thing that came to my mind: ‘Do you have a record collection?’ He said, ‘I do.’ I said, ‘Look, just go inside and write down you’re going to sign your record collection over to me.’ And when he got inside, they stopped him from jumping.

“I don’t know where I got the nerve to talk to him,” says humble Henry, who, by the way, never did get the record collection.