Marlee Matlin on Henry Winkler Friendship, Calling Him ‘Fairy Godfather’ (Exclusive)

Marlee Matlin has counted Henry Winkler as a close friend for decades, as a new documentary about the Oscar-winning actress attests. 

In director Shoshannah Stern’s new project, Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Thursday, Jan. 23, Matlin, 59, and Winkler, 79, reflect together, and in individual on-camera interviews, on their close friendship — which began when the Happy Days star saw a 12-year-old Matlin onstage in a Chicago variety show.

Speaking at PEOPLE and Entertainment Weekly’s Shutterstock Official Sundance Film Festival Portrait Studio on Friday, Jan. 24, the Children of a Lesser God star recalls living with Winkler and wife Stacey Weitzman for two years after getting sober. 

“I’m always so very grateful for that family who took me in at one of the worst times of my life, who helped me heal, who helped me learn to start all over again, who gave me the courage to be able to stand on my own two feet,” she tells PEOPLE via interpreter Jack Jason.

“He gave me the courage to say, ‘I can do it,’ as he would do with his own children and people he cares about,” Matlin adds. “If it were not for Henry, I don’t know where I’d be. Really. Henry Winkler and Stacey Winkler, his wife, are just godsends.”

Not Alone Anymore chronicles Matlin’s journey from her breakout as the youngest and first deaf best actress Academy Award winner, to the years following, when she fought for cultural representation of the deaf community onscreen. (The documentary’s title refers to a comment Matlin made after 2021 hit CODA and its deaf star Troy Kotsur earned Oscars 35 years after her historic win.)

In the doc, Winkler recalls his first encounter with the precocious Matlin and how their friendship evolved to the point of roommates. Included is footage from Matlin’s wedding in 1993 to husband Kevin Grandalski — which took place in Winkler and Weitzman’s backyard. 

“That was great,” says Matlin with a smile. “A fun fact, to talk to people about how I got married at the Fonz‘s house. But actually I don’t see him as the Fonz. I see him as my family friend, a second father.”

“I have often seen [Matlin’s] story be compared to a Cinderella story,” Stern, 44, tells PEOPLE. “She was plucked from obscurity and sent to the Oscars. I always felt like that’s doing Marlee a disservice because Marlee has worked so hard.”

But, she quips, “Henry Winkler is definitely the fairy godmother.”

“Fairy godfather!” agrees Matlin.

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Winkler is so integral to Matlin’s life that he’s already bonded with her daughter’s baby Brooklyn, who made Matlin a grandmother for the first time.

“That really gave me so much pleasure, to see the two of them meet,” she says. “It just gave me chills.”

Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore does not yet have a theatrical release date.