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IF YOU WOULD HAVE TOLD ME:<\/strong> A Memoir<\/strong>, by John Stamos with Daphne Young<\/p>\n BEING HENRY:<\/strong> The Fonz \u2026 and Beyond<\/strong>, by Henry Winkler with James Kaplan<\/p>\n When I worked for a casting director in the 1980s, the most fun part of the job was looking at the marked-up appointment sheet at the end of each day. Because film and TV auditions are intimate, often conducted over a desk, my boss had devised a code by which to secretly rate the sensitive actors sitting just inches away from her: CBNC (close but no cigar), LLIT (a little long in the tooth), and so on.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n So you can imagine my surprise when, after a very chatty young actor known for playing snotty know-it-alls had auditioned one day, my boss abandoned her usual hieroglyphics and simply scrawled next to the actor\u2019s name on the appointment sheet, in all caps, the seven-letter epithet that starts with \u201cA\u201d and ends with \u201cE\u201d and is synonymous with \u201cbackside.\u201d Cowabunga!<\/p>\n Neither of the smart and entertaining new memoirs by Henry Winkler and John Stamos inspires such odium \u2014 even if both TV stars have written books that traffic heavily in their authors\u2019 lesser angels. These foibles elicited differing reactions from me \u2014 I wanted to give the adorably needy Winkler the kind of slow-burn hug that would both congratulate and pacify him; I wanted to abandon the businesslike and unidealistic Stamos in a black box theater with Stella Adler until he starts babbling about \u201cmaking choices\u201d and his \u201cinstrument.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Winkler\u2019s essential m.o. in life, we learn, is to try to make everyone love him because his Holocaust survivor parents didn\u2019t. After graduating from Yale Drama School, he got his breakout role as the too-cool-for-school Fonzie on \u201cHappy Days\u201d just six weeks after moving to Los Angeles.<\/p>\n Playing the Fonz has been a meal ticket that has yielded Winkler interesting reactions from unlikely sources. \u201cYou do not have to tell me who you are,\u201d Marcello Mastroianni made clear. \u201cFinally, we meet,\u201d Orson Welles uttered.<\/p>\n On the flip side, Winkler has spent much of his post-Fonzie career trying not to be typecast \u2014 an obstacle not made easier by the fact that he didn\u2019t learn he was severely dyslexic until he was 34. Winkler has made up for lost time by branching out into other pursuits \u2014 directing, producing, <\/span>writing children\u2019s books .<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But Winkler\u2019s bigger obstacle, it seems, has been emotional immaturity: Until he started therapy seven years ago, he had intimacy problems, including not being able to tell his partner, Stacey, that he loved her. (Wonderfully, Stacey, now his wife, writes responses throughout the book, such as \u201cThere were times when I thought \u2026 \u2018Now I have another child?\u2019\u201d)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Winkler\u2019s affective shortcomings throw his social anxiety and bouts of verbal diarrhea into high relief. After meeting Paul McCartney, Winkler, hoping to hang out with the former Beatle, called him 10 times without getting an answer; after chattering incessantly at Neil Simon\u2019s house over dinner one night, he spent months summoning the courage to ask Simon over, only to be told twice that the playwright was \u201cbusy.\u201d <\/p>\n It\u2019s this kind of candor \u2014 coming from someone who once duct-taped deli turkey to his shoes so his dog would play with him \u2014 that makes Winkler so lovable on the page. Under the juddering neediness lies a mensch: After Winkler had shot his role in \u201cScream,\u201d he was told his name couldn\u2019t be on the movie poster because the Fonzie connection would create the wrong expectations for a horror film. But, Hollywood being Hollywood, when the film came out Winkler was asked to do press. Which he agreed to. <\/p>\n Winkler\u2019s story is also aided by the fact that his deepest work as an actor \u2014 on the terrific recent HBO series \u201cBarry\u201d<\/a> \u2014 <\/em>came directly after the therapy sessions that helped Winkler with his intimacy issues. As my former boss might have written, VTEBNLPBI (very tidy ending, but no less powerful because of it).<\/p>\n John Stamos, he of \u201cFull House\u201d<\/a> and \u201cE.R.\u201d and Broadway, takes longer to warm to on the page. Stamos is blessed with some of Winkler\u2019s candor \u2014 he admits to having had two nose jobs <\/span>and having gone to Alcoholics Anonymous. However, it\u2019s hard to rouse a head of steam for a thespian whose raison d\u2019\u00eatre is to \u201cget famous\u201d <\/span>and who cops to \u201ctrying to achieve sex symbol status.\u201d <\/span>WIJJ (where is the joy, John)?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Such dampening pragmatism seems to spill over even to Stamos\u2019s love life. After saying of one actress more famous than he was that \u201cit wouldn\u2019t hurt to get to know her,\u201d he dated her for almost a year. Later in the book, Stamos confesses that he used to want to partner up with \u201csomeone who has a bigger, more exciting life than mine to elevate me\u201d so they\u2019d be \u201ca power couple always in the press,\u201d but, once he started seeing his now-wife, Caitlyn, he realized that what he\u2019d always needed was someone who\u2019s cozy-making \u2014 someone who would tell him when he has \u201ctoo much product in my hair.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Some Stamos fans may enjoy this kind of Malibu verismo, but I found myself repeatedly looking floorward in search of a dog to pet. That said, a few things save Stamos from hanging himself. For one, he\u2019s great with period detail. When Stamos auditioned in the early \u201980s to play the thief and urchin Blackie Parrish on \u201cGeneral Hospital,\u201d<\/a> he had his mother feather his hair with a curling iron \u2014 hair that was already streaked with Sun In. He rejected his father\u2019s Members Only jacket in favor of his mother\u2019s long leather jacket, and tied a yellow bandanna around his leg in homage to Chachi on \u201cHappy Days.\u201d Then he drove to the audition in an El Camino he calls \u201cthe El Co.\u201d You can almost smell <\/em>the Travolta.<\/p>\n Second, we can chalk some of Stamos\u2019s apparent lack of passion about acting up to the fact that music \u2014 specifically, drumming \u2014 seems to be his true love. After befriending at Disneyland a Beach Boys cover band called Papa Doo Run Run early in his career, Stamos proceeded to charm his way into the inner circle of the actual Beach Boys and then to play drums hundreds of times with the legacy pop group during the 1980s and \u201990s. These sections of the book are some of its most exciting.<\/p>\n Lastly, Stamos is a highly social creature. I enjoyed reading about his mentors, Garry Marshall and Jack Klugman; the charity work he has done with abused and neglected kids; and the strings-pulling that he did on behalf of both his first wife, the actress Rebecca Romijn, and his pal Don Rickles. Similarly, the chapter about his friend and \u201cFull House\u201d colleague Bob Saget,<\/a> who died last year, is lovely.<\/p>\n Speaking of tidy endings: Winkler, it turns out, was an early influence for Stamos. After meeting the affable fellow actor, Stamos decided, \u201cI\u2019m going to treat people the way he treats me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n ALAFWARHC: At last, a friend for Winkler who\u2019ll always return his calls.<\/p>\n Audio produced by Tally Abecassis.<\/p>\n IF YOU WOULD HAVE TOLD ME: A Memoir<\/strong> | By John Stamos with Daphne Young | 337 pp. | Henry Holt | $26.99<\/p>\n BEING HENRY: The Fonz \u2026 and Beyond <\/strong>| By Henry Winkler with James Kaplan | 256 pp. | Celadon | $30<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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