For more than 50 years, people have enjoyed The Price Is Right on television. One of the games the contestants play is called Plinko, where they drop a small, round disc into a kind of maze and, as it pinballs its way down, you have no clue where it will land. In fact, the more you try to will it to a certain destination, the more likely it’ll end up somewhere else.
I’ve always thought that simple game was a good metaphor for life: The tighter you grip destiny, the more likely it will slip out of your hands like a slimy, wet mackerel.
Since this issue of the magazine is shining a spotlight on “the best,” I wanted to take a closer look at the worst moments in life—and the hidden gifts they often turn out to be. Nothing drives home a point like a true story.
One of the most beloved and successful actors in my lifetime is Henry Winkler. A cursory glance at his career would appear as rosy as a local nursery in late spring. Truth is, its start was anything but.
After struggling badly with dyslexia in school, Winkler worked extra hard and got into Yale, graduating with a Master of Fine Arts in 1970. At 5’ 6”, he was nobody’s idea of a leading man, but set out to conquer Broadway anyway, only to find nearly every door closed.
A year later, in 1971, he couldn’t believe his luck when he was cast as the main character in a big play called Moonchildren, for a theater production in Washington, DC.
Three weeks into the rehearsals, Winkler was promptly fired, but was told he did nothing wrong. In truth, he was wonderful. So why dump him? It turned out, the director of the play planned to give the juicy part to an established film actor who wasn’t available for the first three weeks of rehearsals. He told Winkler he had used him as a “placeholder” until the real star was available, and now that the star was on stage, Winkler could go.
As big a jerk as the director was, a less important person attached to the production apologized to Winkler and told him he would find a way to make it up to him someday.
Jump ahead a couple of years, and as Winkler was shooting TV commercials and off-off-Broadway productions in New York City (anything to pay the rent), his phone rang. The person who promised to make things right was working on a small, independent movie with a tiny budget that was shooting in Brooklyn, and had a perfect role for Winkler. The movie was called The Lords of Flatbush.
He got the part, and starred alongside an unknown actor named Sylvester Stallone. “Sly,” as he was known, was always busy writing scripts, including one about a boxer. I wonder what became of that one. Hmm…
Anyway, because Winkler got the part in the movie with Stallone, he was able to audition for a new TV pilot that ABC was shooting about a regular family during the nostalgic 1950s.
At his audition, Winkler did an exact imitation of the role Sly Stallone played in Flatbush, and director Gary Marshall loved it. The character Winkler would play was called Fonzie. And the rest is history.
Winkler was devastated the day he got fired from that play, but it set him on a course that truly changed his life and fortune.
Whatever your dreams, don’t let the setbacks get you down. Often it’s the broken road that leads, not just to love, but to our true destination.
