Melissa Stone: Author and screenwriter in Los Angeles, California.

Really enjoyed this story. The Fonz, in my view, was one of the greatest characters created in the history of TV and Henry and his agents or the producers of Happy Days should have exploited that - create a new show about the Fonz instead of letting him become history. Most actors have within them the ability of creating great characters, if only they would be given an opportunity - a script in which a great character had been presented or a director who had some wild ideas. I suspect that the Charlie Chaplin Hobo character came to life when Charlie walked through a prop house, tried on some rags and floppy shoes, looked in a mirror and created the character whom he played for years. John Wayne adopted a character he created in a film and played him for the rest of his life - on screen as well as in real life. If you look at some of his early work, you'll see an entirely different character. They even tried to make a cowboy singer out of him. I had started as an actor in radio before TV arrived - did my first network radio drama out of Toronto with Leslie Nielsen. When TV arrived, it was all live and we kept tripping over cables strung out on studio floors. My first show was a mini-series with Lorne Greene and Patrick Macnee. Shows and films included Kate Reid and Christopher Plummer and a forgettable film I did was directed by John Huston. When my wife became pregnant with our first born I realized we'd go from two people with two salaries to three people with one salary and I wasn't prepared to try that as a free lance actor. I had already started writing and had sold an episode to a TV sitcom plus a pile of radio dramas and comedies, so I switched to Advertising, moved to New York and enjoyed a meteoric career on Madison Avenue - underworked and overpaid. I moved back to Canada when my dad came down with cancer and remained in advertising for a few years but pulled out to become an entrepreneur. After a deal that went south, I found myself broke and, ironically, was saved by my acting experience. By accident, I fell back into performing, did very well and got out of the hole in one year. Most of the income came from commercials. Advertisers were generous at that time and I got double and triple scale most of the time - got flown up to Montreal and down to Memphis a few times. One of my gigs was as a double for Henry in a Christmas film in which Henry played Scrooge. We were on location, in the country in miserable weather. Henry spoke to no one and took refuge in his trailer the instant he finished his scenes. I'd seen the same behavior from Eddie Albert in another film. Cast and crew respect the need for privacy by legendary names. Recently, a friend, who had once worked with Mary Tyler Moore, told me that Mary was very different from the character she played in her series. My friend had mentioned that to Mary, who replied, "Oh, that character was my mother. I just imitate her fore that role. The "Biz" is forever interesting.