On View : Tru Family Values

Henry Winkler is quick to say he was “thrilled,” not intimidated, starring opposite Katharine Hepburn in the holiday movie “One Christmas,” airing Monday on NBC.

“And I must tell you something,” he adds with a smile, “that not being intimidated is a big accomplishment. I was so happy that I wasn’t intimidated, that I wasn’t awkward and I did my job. I was thrilled to death. I was so proud of myself.”

A few years ago, Winkler acknowledges, that wouldn’t have been the case. “I was intimidated by everybody,” he says matter-of-factly. “I thought everybody knew more than I did. I think just growing up (just changed my outlook). I just didn’t want to be that way any more, so I worked on it. What is maddening is that the distance between being intimidated and giving all that power away is not that far away.”

Winkler raises his hand and measures out about an inch between his thumb and index finger. “It is that far away,” he repeats. “That’s the killer.”

On this rainy, cold morning, Winkler is relaxing in his office at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank. The actor, now 49, was a pop-culture phenomenon for 11 seasons as the supercool leather-jacketed Fonzie on the ABC sitcom “Happy Days.” In person, Winkler comes across as a genuinely nice guy, appreciative of the fact his visitor had seen a dress rehearsal of “Happy Days” in 1976.

Though “Happy Days” has been out of production for 10 years, the series--and the Fonz--live on in repeats.

“That’s what amazes me, that I’m still on,” Winkler says. “I get fan mail. I get invited to dinner in homes across the country--by the parents of the children who are watching. You know, the Fonz is (mentioned) in ‘Pulp Fiction.’ Not only that, but mentioned by one of the most incredible performances to come down the pike--by Samuel Jackson. I called him up, but unfortunately he was off doing (a movie).”

Winkler, who also is a successful TV and film producer (“MacGyver,” “Sightings, “The Sure Thing”) and film director (“Cop-and-a-Half,” “Memories of Me”), had never met Hepburn before doing “One Christmas.”

The bittersweet drama, directed by Tony Bill, is based on Truman Capote’s acclaimed short story about an 8-year-old boy named Buddy who spends Christmas with his estranged father. Hepburn plays a charming grand dame.

“I just admired her from afar,” Winkler say of Hepburn. “She is an amazing person because she is 87. She is a very powerful woman. She is very powerful physically. We were in this big mansion on Market Street in Wilmington, N.C., and there was this big stairway going up to the second level where she had to do a scene. She climbed those stairs as if she was just walking from one chair to another. She has a very powerful presence and whatever time does to a human being at 87, it didn’t matter.”

Winkler, the father of three, adored his 8-year-old co-star, T.J. Lowther (“A Perfect World”), who plays Buddy. “That kid is so great,” he says with much affection. “We had a bond that you dream about when you are working with somebody. He was my friend. We just connected. We had a relationship and it just jumps off the screen.”

Winkler was quick to give young Lowther some sage acting advice. “I would explain to him that actors don’t eat peanut butter before doing a scene because it can stick to the roof of your mouth, because it can get stuck in between your teeth, it can completely gum up the works. So I had to hide the sandwiches from him and after the scenes, he would have a snack. He is scrumptious.”

In “One Christmas,” Winkler plays a ne’er-do-well who is not doing very well living in the New Orleans of 1930. And he hasn’t a clue how to deal with his son whom he hasn’t seen in six years.

“He has an impression of who a father is supposed to be,” Winkler explains. “The father has no ability to be a father and sees the son, in my mind, as a pawn--a child is to be seen and not heard--and to use the child to the best benefit. He was a man who, I think, was a manic depressive more than a drunk. I think he kept reaching for the brass ring and never quite got it.”

And when Buddy arrives, Winkler says, “he is scamming, always looking for money. I played him as a Northerner who went South to marry older and rich--charm his way into wealth. He could do it, but lived from hand to mouth and had no idea what it was to be intimate and no idea what it was like to be loved. And he certainly had no connection to this short person, his son. But he learns to love through his son. The son is very wise.”

The movie, Winkler says, is an emotional ride. “It gets your energy going--you hate the dad, you like the dad, you hate the dad, you are outraged by the dad and you feel sorry for the dad.”

Winkler says he had to carefully “modulate” his performance. “But the director was very good about that because there were so many ways to go (with the character). My wife, who is the most direct critic, the most straightforward in her language about what I do, went and saw it and she gave me the ‘OK.’ So I knew I was somewhere in the vicinity of having done a good job.”

“One Christmas” airs Monday at 9 p.m. on NBC; “Sightings” air Sundays at 6 p.m. on KTTV; repeats of “Happy Days” air weekdays at 6 a.m. on TBS.