Heyyy! Fonzie To Play Porn Star on Broadway

Still Sexy: Henry Winkler Image by Getty Images
Hold on to your leather, “Happy Days” fans: The Fonz may be coming to Broadway as a porn star.
That’s right — the onetime teen heartthrob Henry Winkler, now 65, is in negotiations to play an aging adult entertainment great in “Performers,” a new comedy by David West Road about the porn industry.
Winkler’s character is loosely based on Ron Jeremy, a…er…giant in the field. The hunky Cheyenne Jackson is slated to play opposite Winkler as an up-and-coming porn performer (read: hot young thing). Evan Cabret will direct the play, which will open in the fall. Robyn Goodman, no stranger to the lewd (she brought the world “Avenue Q”), has signed on as producer.
It goes without saying that this is the juiciest role offered to Winkler in decades, though we did love his comedic turn as the hapless lawyer Barry Zuckerhorn in “Arrested Development.” And now a porn star? The Shmooze can’t think of a better way for The Fonz — that bad-boy greaser with a heart of gold — to spend his golden years. Thumbs-up!
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
- 4
Opinion What Jewish university presidents say: Trump is exploiting campus antisemitism, not fighting it
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture In Pope Francis, a voice for interfaith dialogue and against antisemitism
-
Fast Forward Israeli army fires deputy commander after finding ‘operational errors’ in killing of 15 Gazans
-
News Pope Francis, who advanced church’s relationships with Jews, dies at 88
-
Fast Forward ‘F–k Israel’ message displayed at Coachella music festival and streamed to millions
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.