Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 8, 1994 TAG: 9401080283
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-16 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD HUFF NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
He was born here (upper West Side), reared here, and went to school here. He just can't get enough of the Big Apple. His work schedule, however, keeps him away - too much, as he sees it.
"This city has got everything," Winkler said from a corner table at one of his favorite taverns, P.J. Clarke's. "It is like a teacher, a teacher of life. . . . This city tastes better than any other."
Winkler, who remembers the date and time he moved for good to Los Angeles - Sept. 18, 1973, 2:45 p.m. - sums up the difference between NYC and LA. this way: "I think you have to know something to make it here, where out there (Los Angeles) you have to be lucky."
Winkler was back home (only for a day) to discuss "Monty," his first regular series since he hung up the famous leather jacket he wore as The Fonz on the long-running "Happy Days" series (1974-84). Fox premieres "Monty" Tuesday, 8 p.m. ET (WJPR/WFXR-Channel 21/27).
Winkler says he doesn't know why he's returning to series work - he's been very successful as a TV and film producer and director - but, he said, "It was an opportunity that presented itself, and it was the right thing to do."
The road back to the small screen wasn't a smooth one.
"Monty," in which he plays a Rush Limbaugh-like conservative host of a local TV show, was originally developed last spring for NBC. According to Winkler, the show was on the NBC schedule and he was on his way to Gotham to shoot promotional spots.
"I had a ticket (to New York), a hotel room was booked . . . and then nothing," Winkler said. "I didn't take it personally. We always knew this show wouldn't die."
Once NBC officially stepped away, the project was shopped around and eventually landed at Fox.
The actor, who made "yo" a household word in the mid-'70s, admitted that the role of a conservative host who attacks immigrants and endangered species is far different from his own political beliefs. "There are times when I have to swallow hard and continue," he said of the series' dialogue.
His own politics are "American," he said, declining to label himself. "I care about this country," he said, reeling off a series of social problems facing the nation. "The worse thing in this country," he concluded, "is the quarterly report. The population has been replaced by profit."
Since "Happy Days" went off the air, Winkler has remained busy as creator and producer of many television shows and movies. "MacGyver," for example, was produced under the Henry Winkler/John Rich Productions banner for ABC. He's also got "Nobody's Children," a movie with Ann-Margret set to air on cable's USA channel in March.
"I'm having a great life," Winkler said. "If the audience watches `Monty,' that would be the icing on the cake."
by CNB