Henry Winkler has a story he's clearly been sitting on for close to forty years, and he finally told it this week.

On Graham Bensinger's show In Depth With Graham Bensinger, the Happy Days and Barry actor said he was fired as director of Turner & Hooch just 13 days into production, after his working relationship with star Tom Hanks came apart on set. Winkler, who is otherwise Hollywood's designated nice guy, didn't dress it up.

According to Winkler's account, reported by Perez Hilton, the job came to him almost by accident. He was shopping at the original Barney's department store when Jeffrey Katzenberg, then a top studio executive, called to offer him the chance to direct the dog comedy. Winkler says he'd actually wanted to direct Stella instead, but Katzenberg insisted he take Turner & Hooch.

He went with his gut against itself, basically. "I went completely against my tummy, and it hit me in the face with a 2x4," Winkler said, describing what came next as a warning sign he'd ignored.

The trouble started, by his telling, during casting. He and Hanks auditioned actresses together for the female lead, and Hanks connected with Mare Winningham, who eventually got the part. Winkler admits he was insecure at the time and overstepped what he saw as his job as director.

"I talked too much and I gave them direction, what I thought was my job, and I wanted to do it over again and apparently that pissed them off," Winkler said.

That did not go over well. Winkler says Katzenberg called him into his office not long after and delivered the verdict flatly: "It's not in the dailies." Winkler went to set, packed his things and drove home. Someone else finished the film. Turner & Hooch released in 1989 with Roger Spottiswoode credited as director, and it became one of Hanks's early box-office hits.

Winkler didn't sugarcoat how it landed on him personally. "I get my things, I drive home, I'm fired as a director. I don't handle it well. I'm devastated," he said.

Asked whether he and Hanks could ever patch things up, Winkler didn't hesitate. "Sure!" he said, sounding like a man who's made peace with an old wound even if the other party hasn't weighed in.

Hanks has not publicly commented on Winkler's version of events, and there's no confirmation from his side of what exactly went wrong on set or whether he even remembers it the same way. For now, this is Winkler's story, told on his own terms, four decades on. Whether Hanks responds, or whether the two ever cross paths to hash it out, is anyone's guess.