In 1978, Didi Conn played the legendary role of Frenchy in Grease. However, years earlier, when she was first starting in the industry, bumping into Henry Winkler helped land her a role on Happy Days. The 74-year-old recently spoke about the chance encounter during an interview with PEOPLE to promote her Laura Geller Beauty campaign.
“Well, this is such a crazy thing,” Conn explained. “I was doing a lot of commercials when I first started in New York, and a lot of times you’re thrown into a room and somebody’s got to be your husband, or you’re on your honeymoon with some guy, [something] like that. And I’m coming down an elevator after an audition, and I look at this guy, I say, ‘Hey, how are you?’ And he looks at me, he says, ‘Oh, I’m good. How are you?’ And it was about 16 floors. By the time we got to the bottom, he says, ‘You want to have some coffee?’ I said, ‘Sure.'”
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She still thought that she recognized Winkler from a previous job when they sat down together for their coffee. “We sit down, and I say, ‘So what [have] you been up to?’” she explained. “And he says, ‘Well, Happy Days.’ And I knew it. I had seen him on Happy Days — it was Henry Winkler. I didn’t know.”
She went on to tell him that she was moving to California in a few months and got his number. Soon after, she received an audition for Happy Days.
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“When I went to Paramount, and I was shown to the office where the audition was, guess who was there and he read with me?” she said. “I didn’t find out right away that I got the part, but when I walked away, and I’m on the Paramount lot, this Brooklyn girl looking around, I called up my agent, and they had heard that I got it. I was so happy, and I thanked Henry, and we stayed very good friends.”
Conn is currently promoting the Full Root-ine Hair & Brow Concealing Cream + Powder, which launched as an Amazon Prime Day exclusive on June 22.