Michael J. Fox

Actor

• Born: June 9, 1961
• Place of Birth: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Fox was already a television star when his performance as Marty McFly in Back to the Future made him the heartthrob for girls across the United States and secured his film career.

Actor. Michael J. Fox spent his childhood and youth moving across Canada, because his father was a career serviceman in Canada’s armed forces. At fifteen, Fox had his first role in a Canadian television series, Leo and Me (1978). The next year, he moved to Los Angeles to try his luck in Hollywood. However, success eluded him, and his luck was so bad that he had to sell pieces of his sectional sofa to buy food.

Fox got his first real break when he was cast in the television sitcom Family Ties as Alex P. Keaton, a role he very nearly did not get. Several key figures in the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) studios thought he was not quite right for the role, and they gave it to him only after much convincing. One of these people, NBC executive Brandon Tartikoff, would later receive some ribbing about his hesitance when Fox became a major star. Alex P. Keaton was an archetypal 1980s character, a high school-aged Republican who embraced greed, consumerism, and the values of corporate America in opposition to his parents, left-wing 1960s idealists who were horrified by their son’s values. Fox’s portrayal of Keaton walked a fine line, as he sought to make him both ridiculous and sympathetic, revealing the human being beneath the caricature.

Fox’s success on television opened the door for him to take the lead role of Marty McFly in the hit science-fiction movie Back to the Future (1985). Again, Fox’s wry humor was essential to the success of the film, which appealed to a broader audience than the average time-travel movie by refusing to take its own science-fiction premise too seriously. The film’s success made sequels inevitable, but after repeating the role of McFly in Back to the Future II and Back to the Future III, Fox made a point of branching out into other types of performances—both comedic and dramatic—so as to avoid being typecast. The late 1980s also marked a major change in Fox’s personal life, as he married Tracy Pollan—who had played his girlfriend on Family Ties—on July 16, 1988. They would subsequently have four children together.

Impact

Michael J. Fox’s portrayals of Alex P. Keaton and Marty McFly created two of the most memorable and culturally resonant characters of the 1980s. He continued a successful career as an actor. Although he refused to become typecast and sought a variety of roles, he remained best known for his comedic performances.

Subsequent Events

Returning successfully to television, Fox became the main lead on ABC's hit sitcom Spin City in 1996. As Mike Flaherty, an astute strategist working as the deputy for the fictional mayor in New York City, Fox firmly anchored the show and even won an Emmy for the role in 2000—the same year that he had decided to leave the sitcom. In 1998, Fox had announced publicly that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1991. Wanting to spend more time with his family and relieve himself of some of the stress of the grueling television schedule, he performed his role as the beloved Flaherty for the last time in 2000, much to the dismay of the show's fans. Thereafter, his career began to be eclipsed by his struggles with the disease, a neurological disorder that slowly and progressively robs its victims of the ability to control their voluntary movements. Fox’s high profile as a successful actor allowed him to become a leading advocate of finding a cure and treatments, largely through the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, such as embryonic stem-cell therapy, a controversial technology that promised the ability to rebuild ravaged nervous systems, but at the price of destroying early-stage human embryos, which many people considered to be full-fledged human beings with the same moral rights and status as humans at any other stage of life.

Fox did eventually go back to his television roots, however, appearing in memorable, recurring guest roles in popular shows such as Boston Legal (2006) and Rescue Me (2009). He also published a handful of memoirs, including Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist (2009) and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future: Twists and Turns and Lessons Learned (2010). In 2013, Fox began his final major role on NBC's The Michael J. Fox Show, based on his own life and his struggles with Parkinson's. It focused on the character Mike Henry (Fox), who was restlessly staying at home with his family for almost five years after leaving his job as a popular news anchor due to a Parkinson's diagnosis. However, despite this star power and largely positive reviews of the pilot from critics, the show never managed to attract high enough ratings and was canceled after the first season. Though this outcome was disappointing, Fox continued to appear on television in a recurring guest role that he had begun in 2010 on the CBS drama The Good Wife, playing Louis Canning, an attorney and courtroom adversary for Julianna Margulies's main character Alicia Florrick. After earning three Emmy nominations, he reprised the role for a final time before the series finale in 2016. In 2022, he was awarded an honorary Oscar for his campaign funding Parkinson's research. On May 12, 2023, the streaming service Apple TV+ released Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, a documentary on Fox's life as an actor and his experience with Parkinson's disease. The documentary won four Primetime Emmy Awards and received a British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) nomination. In 2024, Time magazine named Fox in its list of the one hundred most influential people in the world.

Bibliography

"Back to the Future Star and Parkinson's Activist Michael J. Fox Gets Honorary Oscar." News 24, 20 Nov. 2022, www.news24.com/life/arts-and-entertainment/film/back-to-the-future-star-and-parkinsons-activist-michael-j-fox-gets-honorary-oscar-20221120. Accessed 20 May 2024.

Fox, Michael J. Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist. Hyperion, 2009.

Fox, Michael J. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future: Twists and Turns and Lessons Learned. Hyperion, 2010.

Fox, Michael J. Lucky Man: A Memoir. Random, 2002.

McAloon, Jonathan. "Back to the Future: A Timeline of Michael J. Fox's Career." Telegraph, 21 Oct. 2015. Web. 22 June 2016.

Reynolds, Ryan. "Michael J. Fox." Time, 17 Apr. 2024, time.com/6963869/michael-j-fox/. Accessed 20 May. 2024.

Thomas, Carly. "Michael J. Fox on Why He Believes Taylor Swift, Ryan Reynolds Will Have an “Amazing” Impact on the World." The Hollywood Reporter, www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/michael-j-fox-believes-taylor-swift-ryan-reynolds-impact-world-1235876572/17. Accessed 20 May 2024.

Wukovitz, John F. Michael J. Fox. Lucent, 2002.