Podcast Tuesday: "Richie Talks Trash"

Lynda Goodfriend, Ron Howard, and H.B. Haggerty on Happy Days.

Wrestler turned actor H.B. Haggerty

Lots of actors, both famous and otherwise, came through Happy Days over the course of 11 seasons, but few are as intriguing as H.B. Haggerty (1925-2004). Born Don Stansauk in Los Angeles, he was the child of immigrants -- a Lithuanian father and an Irish mother. He grew up poor, survived the Depression, and served with honor in World War 2, all before becoming a professional football player in the early 1950s. After a season with the Detroit Lions and two with the Green Bay Packers, Stansauk switched to professional wrestling. He originally fought under the rather unimpressive name Don Sparrow before finally taking on the alias H.B. Haggerty, with the initials standing for "Hard Boiled."

Haggerty wrestled for twenty years, establishing himself as a recognizable icon with his curly mustache, bald pate, and towering physique. By the time he finally stepped away from the squared circle in 1972, he'd already embarked upon a prosperous acting career. He made his screen debut in a November 1967 episode of Get Smart, and he'd go on to make dozens of film and TV appearances over the course of the next two decades. Naturally, he was typecast as thugs and tough guys, but this didn't seem to bother him in the slightest. Acting was certainly less punishing on his body than football or wrestling had been. 

Resembling an old timey circus strongman, Haggerty glowered and growled his way through such memorable films as The Muppet Movie (1979), Foxy Brown (1974), and even the musical Paint Your Wagon (1969), where he got to sing on a couple of numbers. As for TV credits, the former Don Stansauk appeared everywhere from action shows like Kung Fu and Adam-12 to sitcoms like The Bob Newhart Show and Mr. Belvedere. And that's just scratching the surface. This guy was nearly impossible to miss on the small screen in the '70s and '80s. Incredible Hulk, Buck Rogers, Love Boat, Starsky & Hutch -- he did it all.

In late 1977, H.B. Haggerty turned up in a Season 5 Happy Days episode called "Nose for News" as a threatening garbageman named Bruno who tells young journalist Richie Cunningham (Ron Howard) to stop investigating any corruption in the Milwaukee Sanitation Department. And this wasn't H.B.'s only run-in with the Happy Days gang. Not by a long shot. He guested twice on the short-lived Happy Days spinoff Blansky's Beauties. Unsurprisingly, he played wrestlers in the films The One and Only (1978) with Henry Winkler and Million Dollar Mystery (1987) with Tom Bosley.

What did we think of H.B. Haggerty in "Nose for News"? You can find out by listening to the latest episode of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast.