Henry Winkler on turning down 'Grease' role: 'I was dumb'

foxnews.com:

Henry Winkler says fears of being typecast prompted him to turn down the lead role in 1978’s "Grease." "I was dumb," Winkler told People magazine in this week’s issue. "I spent so much energy, so much time … I spent so many sleepless nights thinking, ‘How do I not get typecast?’" The 77-year-old was at the height of his "Happy Days" fame, playing leather jacket-wearing "Fonzie," when he was offered the part, and he worried that the role of Danny Zucko, which went to John Travolta, would pigeonhole him.

The 1978 musical was one of Travolta’s first leading film roles after his turn as Tony Manero in "Saturday Night Fever." "You go with the flow," Winkler advised. "What you do is you prepare to reinvent yourself.

You do something completely different and then come back to center." After "Happy Days" ended its 11-season run in 1984, Winkler, like many other performers, struggled to launch the second act of his career. "There were eight or nine years at a time when I couldn't get hired because I was 'The Fonz', because I was typecast," he told Today.com earlier this year. "I had psychic pain that was debilitating because I didn't know what to do.

I didn't know where to find it, whatever it was. I didn't know what I was going to do. I had a family. I had a dog. I had a roof.