From Dad came the idea to incorporate some of the broad, over-the-top humor of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, the very same movie I took Cheryl to on our first date. Paula’s father and his minions take off in pursuit of the runaway lovers via helicopter. An even crazier chase is set into motion when the young man Paula’s parents want her to marry, a rich twit named Collins Hedgeworth （Dad loved coming up with kooky names）， announces on a radio program that he is offering a $25,000 reward to whoever catches Paula and Sam. This triggers all manner of idiotic bounty hunters to hit the road in pursuit of the lovers and the cash prize. Given the conventions of the genre, I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to say that Sam and Paula ultimately elude their captors and get married.
Dad and I pounded out a draft of this story and turned in a script to Roger with the title Grand Theft Auto. Frances Doel came back to us with a few notes. We made adjustments accordingly. A day after receiving our revision, Roger called me.
“Ron, Roger here!” he said, his voice full of cheer. “We like your second draft of the script and we’ve budgeted to produce the film for $602,000, which is a lot of money for New World Pictures. We’ve already designed the poster. Your first shooting day will be March the second. Congratulations. You’re going to direct your first film!”
All I could muster in my relief and shock was a wobbly “Thanks.” It was the fastest green light I have ever received in my filmmaking career, up to and including the present day.
In the moment, I was too euphoric and future-focused to see the parallels. My career as an actor began with a providential nudge from Rance Howard. “By the way, I have a son who is a fine actor,” he told the receptionist at MGM. Had Dad not come through twenty years later—basically saying, By the way, I have an idea for a fine screenplay—I’m not sure I would have been given this first opportunity to direct.
THE HAPPY DAYS gang was ecstatic at hearing my news. Henry, Anson, and Donny told me they were proud of me. Marion Ross agreed to take a part in the movie, working for scale and playing against type as the pushy, entitled mother of Collins Hedgeworth. Garry Marshall requested a cameo, so I gladly gave him a small role as a gangster. Jim Ritz, one of the show’s writers and a friend of mine, signed on to play a bumbling cop and has since appeared in a dozen more of my movies.
They were all well-versed in my ambition to direct because . . . well, because I never shut up about it. I’m sure my nonstop babbling annoyed the folks on Stage 19 sometimes. But none of them ever cast aspersions on my dream. Their spirit was best summarized by Garry, who more or less bestowed a benediction upon me as I was about to undertake the project. “Go get ’em, Ron,” he said, a hand on my shoulder. “Go get ’em.”
I really appreciated this support because I felt that ABC was continuing to heap indignities upon me. At the start of the fourth season, Henry signed a new contract. He had them over a barrel because his original contract, unlike mine, was for only three years. When he signed it, Fonzie was just a supporting character. If Happy Days hadn’t made it as a series, Henry would have happily returned to New York and acting in the theater. Now he was the hottest star on television. The network gave him a huge raise, to somewhere in the neighborhood of $20,000 a week. Meanwhile, I was still under contract for another four years and had been offered only incremental raises. I was making $5,000 a week and still putting in the same amount of work as my friend.
Season Four of Happy Days began in 1976 with a three-part episode entitled “Fonzie Loves Pinky,” in which the Fonz competes in a demolition derby against two hoods known as the Malachi Brothers and rekindles a romance with an old flame named Pinky Tuscadero. Instead of following our usual routine and starting out the season at Paramount, we reported first to a movie ranch in Malibu Creek State Park to shoot the derby scenes. Henry called me and asked if he could hitch a ride out to Malibu. He wanted to have a talk.
As we rolled west in my Bug, I could sense that he was uneasy, avoiding eye contact and restlessly bouncing his knee. “Ron, I gotta ask you a question,” Henry said. “How do you feel? Because look, I know what’s happening. The Fonz is taking off and the show was designed for you to be the star. And they just gave me a big raise.”