In a recent commencement speech at his alma mater, Emerson College, Jewish “Happy Days” and “Barry” star Henry Winkler reminded the audience that he was in the bottom 3% of people academically. In the 1960s, Emerson was the only college to accept him of the 28 he applied to. He graduated in 1967 and went on to Yale drama school.
Yet, his incredible eight-minute commencement speech shows that he is in the top 3% of people when it comes to being a mensch. It was a compassionate and rousing address filled with advice that I’m sure many of the grads will take to heart.
In fact, I think we could all learn a thing or two from our modern Jewish sage, Henry Winkler. Here are some of my favorite nuggets of wisdom from the acting and comedy genius (and fishing maven!).
Always start with a Jewish joke — or two.
Winkler started his speech by talking to the fellow parents at the graduation about his young son Max, who, at every turn, when his father told him to go to college, to get a job, to show up for work every day, responded with: “God will provide.”
“I know two things about our son. He’s a slacker. And he thinks I’m God,” he then told the crowd, to roaring laughter.
He then went on to joke about his own Jewish father, who brought his family and his family business to the U.S. from Germany in 1939, narrowly escaping the Holocaust, during which Winkler lost many of his Jewish relatives. His father, Winkler explained, “wanted me to take over the lumber business that he brought from Europe.”
“I said, I’m not interested in wood,” Winkler explained before imitating his father, with German accent: “Why do you think I bought it over here?”
“I said, besides being chased by the Nazis, Dad, was there a bigger reason than that?” Winkler then recounted to more laughter. It’s a joke that Winkler has told before, but it works every time.
In Winkler’s autobiography “Being Henry: The Fonz… and Beyond” (which I highly recommend listening to as an audiobook, for some surprise cameos and passionate narration from Winkler), Winkler talks about how complicated his relationship was with his Jewish parents. They were German refugees who never quite accepted or supported or understood Winkler and his dreams and his struggles (the actor has dyslexia, which went undiagnosed for a very long time — he created the “Here’s Hank” book series to make kids like him feel seen). And yet here he is, immortalizing them with a delightful joke, finding the sweet in the bitter.
“Live by two words: tenacity and gratitude. Tenacity will get you where you want to go, and gratitude will make you enjoy the journey, no matter how bumpy.”
Winkler’s journey to Hollywood (the only wood he was interested in) wasn’t a smooth ride before he got to Emerson. “My life was like a cylinder of stainless steel, no hand holds, no footholds, and I kept trying to pull myself up into the sun, and I kept failing at everything,” he said of his childhood. But: “I had a dream and I never let that dream out of my mind.”
“You are not hired, no matter what you do, to fill time and space — you are hired to fill that time and space with your imagination.”
Winkler recalled the process of auditioning for “Happy Days,” getting the role of Fonz, and what he did to make that role his own.
“It says in the script, go to the mirror, comb your hair. I said, I don’t want to comb my hair,” he recalled of his first day on set, “I want to be original. Every actor has combed their hair. Do anything, write anything, I will do it. They said, ‘Oh, the producer wrote, go to the mirror, comb your hair.’ I go to the mirror. I pull out my comb, go, ‘Hey, look at that. I don’t have to, because it’s perfect.'”
With this anecdote, Winkler invited everyone listening to him to make every job and task their own, to do it in their own unique way.
“Listen to your tummy. Your tummy knows everything. Your mind only knows a few things.”
Winkler firmly believes in listening to your intuition and to what your body is telling you — but it’s his use of the word “tummy” that I find particularly endearing.
“You can not live a rich life if you don’t have empathy.”
Winkler believes that whoever said America’s problem is too much empathy was wrong. He thinks that no matter how much wealth you accumulate, true richness lies in being empathetic to others.
“Everyone of you is powerful.”
Winkler ended his charismatic performance by telling every single person in the crowd that in them lies “a great gift, and your job is to figure out what your gift is, because this world needs every single one of you, and your job is to find that gift and give it to the world. It doesn’t matter what it is, we need it — go.” Hear, hear!
Watch the full speech below:
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