Anson Williams and Don Most Share 'Happy Days' Memories - Milwaukee Magazine
READ MORE FROM OUR "HAPPY DAYS" FEATURE HERE.
By the end of "Happy Days," Anson Williams and Don Most were inseparable. At the start, they were competition.
Williams first auditioned for the role of Potsie in Gary Marshall's proto-"Happy Days" pilot originally called "New Family in Town." His car broke down on the way to the audition, and he waited in the rain for a tow. "I looked like a drowned rat," he says. When he showed up late, he begged forgiveness and was brought back to read for Marshall, who, to Williams' bafflement, mostly just asked him about baseball, before having him read with Ron Howard, and then for ABC executives.
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"Afterward, they tell me, 'Thank you very much,'" Williams said. "Keep in mind, I've been there for hours. I'm still wet. I think, 'What a waste of a day.' I drive home. When I get in, the phone's ringing. It's my agent. I got the part."
ABC didn't pick up the pilot, but a year later, the network decided to give Marshall's concept a second try. But the executives were skeptical that an older Williams could still pull off high schooler Potsie and made him audition again. (They did the same to Ron Howard.)
"There were 15 other guys in there auditioning for my part," Williams says. "Donny Most was one of them."
Most, a young actor and singer, heard about the role from his agent and went through a "grueling" audition to take Williams' part.
"I got a call a few days later – Anson's doing the part again," Most says. "But they liked [my] audition so much that they wanted to create a new role to put me on the show as a regular character."
And so Ralph Malph was born.
And then Most turned it down.
He was in the running for a role in a movie that would have filmed at the same time. "In my head, I was looking to do dramatic work more than comedy," he says, and so chose the movie.
"As fate would have it, my agent played basketball every Saturday at Garry Marshall's house," Most says. "During a break in the game, Garry took my agent aside and said, 'What's going on with your boy turning us down?'"
Most's agent re-negotiated to get Most more episodes and more money – enough to convince Most to take the role of Ralph.
And that role not only launched Most's career – he continues to act in film and television and recently released a new album, New York High – but also found him a best friend. Fifty years later, he was Anson Williams' best man in his 2023 wedding.
Anson Williams' real last name is Heimlich. Yes, that Heimlich. His uncle is Henry Heimlich, the inventor of the namesake maneuver to clear the airway of someone choking.
"The Heimlich maneuver would not be where it is today without 'Happy Days,'" Williams says.
In 1980, Heimlich was struggling to promote his maneuver and have it widely accepted in the medical community, so Williams, during an appearance on "The Merv Griffin Show" brought his uncle on to demonstrate the maneuver.
That appearance led to Heimlich appearing on "Johnny Carson" a few weeks later to perform the move on America's favorite late-night host. From there, the maneuver took off in popularity and is now a common emergency intervention that's saved many lives.
"If Gary Marshall hadn't created a show called 'Happy Days,' if there weren't superstars like Henry Winkler and Ron Howard, if all these people hadn't made that show a success, Henry [Heimlich] might have never gotten that call [from Carson.] There are people alive today because of 'Happy Days.'"
Historic Milwaukee images contributed by: John Eastberg, David Leister, Adam Levin, The Milwaukee County Historical Society, Milwaukee Public Library and Wisconsin Historical Society.
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