Fonzie-Mania
RON
Henry, Donny, Anson, and I were fast friends. Four guys who had not previously known one another, apart from my filming the earlier pilot with Anson, discovered that they were simpatico not only on the set but off the lot.
On Monday nights, Cheryl and I took to dining out with Henry. It was our way of socializing and trying out new restaurants on a quiet night; already, weekend dining was a nonstarter because our newfound popularity precluded us from getting through a meal unhassled by throngs of fans. Henry called us the Monday Marauders. As time went on, our group expanded to include his girlfriend and future wife, Stacey Weitzman, and, when Three’s Company became a hit on ABC, John Ritter and his wife, Nancy Morgan.
Donny gamely agreed to play the lead in a naturalistic indie movie that I was making on weekends. It was called Leo and Loree. I was trying to emulate the improvisational style of John Cassavetes. Donny was Leo. Loree was played by Linda Purl, who Happy Days fans know as Richie’s girlfriend Gloria in the show’s first season and Fonzie’s steady, Ashley, in the later seasons. （I never finished the film, though it was later reshot by Jerry Paris, Happy Days’s main director, and received a limited release through United Artists.） As for Anson, he and I hatched plans to produce films together. Eventually, we actually made one, a TV movie called Skyward.
So, from an interpersonal standpoint, Happy Days was a terrific place to work. I couldn’t have asked for a better group of colleagues. If The Andy Griffith Show was my de facto hometown, where I felt safe among the set’s kindly grown-ups, Happy Days was college and the army rolled into one, where I met my once and forever confidants and drinking buddies. （Not that I’ve ever been much of a drinker.）
An added benefit to working on the show: the early 1970s were a cool time to be on the Paramount lot. In my wanderings, I happened upon a private advance screening of Roman Polanski’s next film, Chinatown, and was waved in to catch it before it hit the theaters. I caught glimpses of Francis Ford Coppola, who was busy putting the final touches on The Godfather, Part II. I felt the same electric excitement in these moments that I had experienced while making American Graffiti—the next wave of American culture was upon us, and I was surfing it in real time.
I needed this boost, because Happy Days was wearing me down physically and mentally. Initially, it was a single-camera rather than three-camera show. This means that it was shot more like a feature film, with no studio audience and each scene’s various angles and takes captured by the same camera. It’s a laborious way to work that requires long days with hardly a break between camera setups—and I was in nearly every scene of Happy Days. This was gratifying, but I was also still trying to carry a course load at USC while coaching Clint’s intermediate-level baseball team. To better situate myself for this peripatetic way of life, I moved out of my dorm and rented an apartment in Glendale. I was clueless about how to live as an adult. My cupboard contained nothing but boxes of Wheat Thins. When I got home from work, I ate half a box for dinner.
What remained of my free time was spent working on scripts, and, of course, being with Cheryl. I was stressed to the hilt—completely running on fumes.
But the biggest stressor of all was Fonzie. Not Henry, but Fonzie. It did not escape my notice that as the season went on, the Fonz was getting more and more screen time. I had perceived Fonzie-mania to be an outside force, a phenomenon generated by the fans. Now I was becoming suspicious. It almost seemed as if the network was trying to marginalize me on my own show. Could this be true? Nah, it can’t be. I’m imagining it.
I didn’t handle my stress particularly well. I probably would have benefited from seeing a psychotherapist, but we Howards were stoic Oklahomans who didn’t have any history with that sort of thing. Instead, I kept everything inside. Then I started breaking out in eczema rashes all over my body, most acutely on my eyelids, which stung with itchiness. I took to calling this condition “stress eye.” And my hair started thinning. Looking at the men on both sides of my family, I knew it was inevitable that I would not hang on to my hair forever. But it started coming out in alarming clumps during this time. Whether or not this was caused by my feelings of overload, it certainly contributed to my unease.