LOS ANGELES: Henry Winkler deserved the biggest thumbs up of all Monday night. More than 40 years after his first Emmy nomination, he finally took home a statuette.
“Oh, my god. Oh, my god. Oh, my god!” said an ecstatic Winkler, 72, who’d leapt onto the stage to accept his award for outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series, bringing the audience to its feet. He played Gene Cousineau on HBO’s dark comedy “Barry”.
“I wrote this 43 years ago,” he said. “Skip Brittenham said to me a long time ago: ‘If you stay at the table long enough, the chips come to you.’ And tonight, I got to clear the table.” Brittenham is an eminent entertainment lawyer.
Winkler was first nominated in 1976 for his role as the iconic Arthur Fonzarelli, who exemplified American “cool” in a black leather jacket, on the show “Happy Days”.
Since then, he has been nominated for five Emmys, including two more for the Fonz in the 1970s, and most recently in 2000 for the ABC drama “The Practice”.
Yesterday, he beat the three-time Emmy winner Tony Shalhoub, who was nominated this year for “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”, a big winner this year. Other nominees included Kenan Thompson of “Saturday Night Live”, nominated for his first Emmy, and Brian Tyree Henry of “Atlanta”.
In his acceptance speech, Winkler thanked the show’s creators Alec Berg and Bill Hader, who also stars in the show and won the best actor in a comedy Emmy.
“I can’t stop yet,” Winkler said as his acceptance speech time wound down. “My wife, Stacey, oh, my god. My cast and crew, and the kids! Kids! Jed, Zoe and Max, you can go to bed now! Daddy won!”
