Sir Henry Winkler (but is Fonzi a Converso?)

Mazal Tov to Henry Winkler for being made an Honorary Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. If we got this straight, he’ll be Sir Henry Winkler if he ever becomes a British citizen. The distinction has nothing to do with his on-par-with-anything-Olivier-ever-did performance as The Fonz. In fact, as Entertainment Weekly […]

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Mazal Tov to Henry Winkler for being made an Honorary Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. If we got this straight, he’ll be Sir Henry Winkler if he ever becomes a British citizen. The distinction has nothing to do with his on-par-with-anything-Olivier-ever-did performance as The Fonz. In fact, as Entertainment Weekly notes, the press release makes no mention of Fonzie or Happy Days — instead playing up “his services to children with dyslexia and special educational needs.”

Now that Winkler is an honorary WASP, it will be even hard to get him to come clean on what we have long suspected to be Arthur Fonzarelli’s family secret — the king of sitcom coolness is descended from conversos.

And in memory of the recently departed Frances Bay … we’ll cite one of the key pieces of evidence — Grandma Nussbaum:

(Jump to 4:06)

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