AceShowbiz - TV icon Henry Winkler once saved a suicidal teenager with a phone call.
The actor was shooting hit show "Happy Days" when an Illinois state trooper asked him to help talk an aspiring actor down from a high-rise ledge he was planning to jump from.
"The phone rings and they say, 'Henry, it's a call for you'," Winkler recalls. "I walked over to the phone and the man said... 'I'm sorry to bother you. I have a 17-year-old kid on the ledge. And he is threatening to jump off and he will only talk to you.' "
"I don't know where I got the nerve to take the phone and start talking to this kid. I said, 'OK, what is your name. OK, John, how old are you? You're 17, you're on the ledge, why do you want to jump?' 'I wanna be an actor.' "
Thinking quickly, Winkler asked the desperate teen to will him his record collection, prompting the 17-year-old to step off the ledge.
"(I said), 'If you get off the ledge, let's talk about acting... I was 27 when I got the Fonz, John. I think you've got 10 good years to keep trying. How 'bout that? Will you do that? OK. Can I get back to rehearsing? Thank you.' "
After recalling the story during an appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!", Winkler said, "I have not thought about that story in a while. I don't know where I got the nerve to talk to him and I just thought, 'I'm gonna maybe take him in another direction.' "
And he knows the teen survived - because he never got his record collection.