The Fonz Was the Only Person Stallone Knew in Hollywood

When Sylvester Stallone reached Los Angeles with his wife and their bullmastiff, he had little money left and one friend to call: Henry Winkler, who was playing the Fonz on Happy Days. Winkler came and found them, and Stallone still describes it as a god-send.

One Phone Call

The two actors had met on the set of The Lords of Flatbush, the 1974 film in which Stallone played Stanley and Winkler played Butchey. Stallone has written that they were an odd pair, "like watching a zebra hang out with a buffalo," but that they clicked because "Henry is a genuinely wonderful human being."

By the time Stallone and his wife, Sasha, drove into Hollywood, Winkler was one of the biggest names on television. Stallone pulled up near Hollywood and Vine and called him.

In the memoir, The Steps, published in September 2026, Stallone says the family had barely $500 left. Winkler "showed up a little while later and was nice enough to direct us to a motel that we could afford for maybe two nights."

The Man and the Mountain of a Dog

Winkler has told the story many times. On a podcast he recalled going to get Stallone, his wife and their bullmastiff, with their clothes and belongings piled in the car: "I went and got him and this mountain of a dog. All of his clothes, everything in the car somehow, [they were] sitting on suitcases."

The memoir excerpts do not mention a breakdown. What both men agree on is the part that matters: Stallone called the one person he knew, and Winkler came.

What Came Next

Stallone wrote the screenplay for Rocky in about three and a half days, shortly after watching Chuck Wepner go the distance with Muhammad Ali in March 1975. The film premiered in New York in November 1976, opened widely on December 3, 1976, and turns 50 this year.

Winkler has also said in interviews that he sold an early version of the script to ABC and later returned the money so Stallone could take it back. Stallone has not confirmed that account in the sources reviewed for this article, and it is hard to square with the timeline, since Rocky was not written until 1975. It is best read as Winkler's own telling.

The motel, at least, is in both men's version. Stallone, who arrived with little money and a dog, went on to write one of the best-known films in American history, and in his memoir he still credits Winkler for showing up.