Happy Days icon Henry Winkler has recalled how he gleefully spotted the Beatle, one of his personal idols, on a New York City street and stopped him for a five-minute chat.

The 78-year-old sitcom star says he was “excited” when Sir Paul passed him his phone number and said “Let’s hang out”.

But the chance encounter turned into a “perfectly excruciating” experience when Henry tried to call him but was “ghosted”.

In his memoir, Being Henry, published last week, he reveals he rang Macca’s mobile “maybe 17 times” to leave messages, all of which went unreturned.

And he adds: “He must have thought, ‘The Fonz. Very cool. But a stalker. And crazy’. I never heard from him again.”

Henry also tells of a decades-earlier meeting with John Lennon, who visited the Happy Days set in 1974 during the show’s first season. “He was so, so shy. I didn’t know how to get into a conversation with John Lennon,” writes Henry.

“I just started talking about Imagine, the solo album he made. There’s a song called Mother, like a primal scream. You started talking to him about it and he opened like a flower. It was amazing.”

The veteran actor, who says he relishes star encounters, admits he has become tongue-tied and embarrassed – like when he barged in on a romantic dinner date to introduce himself to Sir Mick Jagger.

He spotted the Rolling Stone in a restaurant and recalls: “I walked up and I said, ‘Hello, I’m Henry Winkler and I have all of your albums’.

Sir Mick slowly turned to look at him before nodding his head in acknowledgement and saying, ‘Henry’, before turning away.

Henry says: “I slunk out of the restaurant. I went, ‘I’m so sorry, I, you know what, I didn’t mean to disturb you. Enjoy the sushi’.”

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