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Michael J. Fox

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Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox with his wife Tracy Pollan, 1988, in front of the Pasadena Civic Auditorium
Born
Michael Andrew Fox
Other namesMike Fox
SpouseTracy Pollan (1988-present)
For other people named Michael Fox, see Michael Fox (disambiguation).

Michael J. Fox (born June 9, 1961) is 4 foot 3 inches and a Canadian/American film and television actor. His best known roles include Marty McFly from the Back to the Future trilogy (1985-1990); Alex P. Keaton from Family Ties (1982-1989), for which he won three Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award; and Mike Flaherty from Spin City (1996-2000), for which he won an Emmy, three Golden Globes, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. He has parkinsons disease.

Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1991, and disclosed his condition to the public in 1998. As the symptoms of his disease worsened, he retired from full-time acting in 2000.

Early life

Michael Andrew Fox was born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, the son of Phyllis, an actress and payroll clerk, and William Fox, a police officer and member of the Canadian Forces.[1][2] Fox's family lived in various cities and towns across Canada because of his father's career.[2] The family finally settled in Vancouver, British Columbia, in the suburb of Burnaby when his father retired in 1971.[3] Fox also attended Burnaby South Secondary where there is currently a theater named after him.

Fox co-starred in the Canadian television series Leo and Me at age fifteen and in 1979, at eighteen, moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career.[2] He was "found" by producer Ronald Shedlo and made his American television debut in the television movie Letters from Frank, credited under the name "Michael Fox". He intended to continue to use the name, but when he registered with the Screen Actors Guild, which does not allow duplicate registration names to avoid credit ambiguities, he discovered that Michael Fox, a veteran character actor, was already registered under the name.[2] As he explained in his autobiography, Lucky Man, and in interviews, he needed to come up with a different name. He did not like the sound of "Andrew" or "Andy" Fox. He decided against using his middle initial because he didn't want to fit into a Canadian stereotype, as in Michael "Eh?" Fox, and because he did not want teen fan magazines referring to him as "Michael, A Fox!". He decided to adopt a new middle initial and settled on "J" in reference to character actor Michael J. Pollard.[3] Sometimes he jokes that the J stands for "Jenius" or "Jenuine".

Acting career

Stardom did not come easily for Fox. Although he landed a rapid succession of parts after Letters from Frank (in the films Midnight Madness and Class of 1984 and in guest roles on Lou Grant and Trapper John M.D.), he hit a dry spell. At one point, he was forced to sell off pieces of his sectional couch, which actor Lance Guest purchased. Fox has called this period his "macaroni days", presumably as opposed to "salad days", jokingly referring to the fact that he ate so many penny-pinching macaroni and cheese dinners.

Family Ties

Fox auditioned for the role of Alex P. Keaton, the arrogant, wise-cracking Republican teenager on the television series Family Ties. The first audition did not go very well, as creator Gary David Goldberg did not think he was right for the part. But casting director Judith Weiner convinced Goldberg to give Fox another shot. Goldberg had a change of heart at the next audition, but now Fox faced opposition from NBC executive Brandon Tartikoff.[2] Goldberg tried to convince Tartikoff that Fox would be good for the role, and Tartikoff finally relented, famously commenting, "Go ahead if you insist. But I'm telling you, this is not the kind of face you'll ever see on a lunch box". A few years later, after Back to the Future opened to big success, Tartikoff received a lunch box in the mail that had Fox's picture on it. There was a note inside that read, "To Brandon: This is for you to put your crow in. Love and Kisses, Michael J. Fox." Tartikoff kept the lunch box in his office for the rest of his career.

Family Ties struggled out of the gate, barely getting renewed in its first season. In 1984, it was paired up with The Cosby Show on Thursday nights, and the two shows ranked in the top two for the Nielsen ratings until 1987, when Family Ties was moved to Sunday nights. Fox won three Emmy Awards and one Golden Globe for his portrayal of Alex P. Keaton. A famous episode in 1987, called "My Name is Alex" was directed like a theatrical play, with Alex seeing a psychiatrist to cope with the death of his best friend. This episode was picked as the 68th best in television history in a 1997 issue of TV Guide. In a 1999 issue, Alex P. Keaton was ranked #27 on their list of the 50 Greatest TV Characters Ever. Fox also met his future wife Tracy Pollan, when she portrayed Alex's girlfriend Ellen Reed in the 1985–1986 season. The couple met again on the set of his 1988 movie, Bright Lights, Big City.[2]

Movie career

Fox shot to movie stardom in the mid 1980s with his leading role as Marty Mcfly in the Back to the Future trilogy starting with the first installment in 1985 and the last installment in 1990. His other notable films included Teen Wolf (1985), The Secret of My Success (1988), Doc Hollywood (1991), For Love Or Money (1993) or The Concierge in some countries , Life With Mikey (1993), The American President (1995) and Mars Attacks! (1996).[2] His last major film role was in The Frighteners (1996).

He is also the voice of Stuart Little in the movie of the same name and its sequel which was based on the popular book by E. B. White. He voiced Chance in Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey and its sequel Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco as well as Milo Thatch in Atlantis: The Lost Empire.

Spin City

Spin City was a sitcom that ran from 1996 to 2002 on ABC, based on a fictional local government running New York City, originally starring Fox as Mike Flaherty, the Deputy Mayor of New York.[2] After leaving the show, he was replaced by Charlie Sheen who portrayed the character Charlie Crawford. Altogether 145 episodes were made (see list of episodes).

Other notable roles

In 2004, Fox guest starred in the comedy Scrubs as Dr. Kevin Casey, who suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder. In 2006, he appeared in four episodes of Boston Legal as a lung cancer patient who used his influence in an experimental drug test to ensure he received the real drug instead of a placebo. The producers brought him back in a recurring role for season 3, beginning with the season premiere. Though his character did not survive the season, Fox was nominated for an Emmy Award for best guest appearance.

Personal life, illness and advocacy

Fox married actress Tracy Pollan on 16 July 1988, at West Mountain Inn in Arlington, VT. The couple have four children: Samuel Michael (born May 30 1989), twins Aquinnah Kathleen and Schuyler Frances (born February 15 1995), and Esmé Annabelle (born November 3 2001). Fox holds dual Canadian-U.S. citizenship.[4]

Fox started displaying symptoms of young-onset Parkinson's disease in 1990 while shooting the movie Doc Hollywood, though he wasn't properly diagnosed until the next year. In 1998 he decided to go public with his condition, and since then he has been a strong advocate of Parkinson's disease research.[2] Fox has focused on embryonic stem cell research, which many in the scientific community believe may one day help sufferers of Parkinson's and other debilitating illnesses. [citation needed] His foundation, The Michael J. Fox Foundation, was created to help advance this research.[2]

In 1998, he was honoured with a star on Canada's Walk of Fame.[5]

He is an outspoken Detroit Tigers fan, attending all 2006 World Series games. [citation needed]

Stem cell research advocacy

See also: Stem cell controversy

Fox, in a 2006 interview with Katie Couric explained his political advocacy, "I'm in this situation with millions of other Americans...and we have a right, if there’s answers out there, to pursue those answers with the full support of our politicians."[6]

Two years earlier, Fox had appeared in a television commercial for Republican Arlen Specter's 2004 Senate campaign.[7] In the commercial, sponsored by Specter's re-election campaign, Fox comments that Specter "gets it" and Specter's voice is heard saying "there is hope."

On July 18, 2006, Fox appeared in a taped interview on ABC's Good Morning America, defending a Senate bill (Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act) that would have expanded federal funding for stem cell research.[8] The bill was not enacted, however, being vetoed by President George W. Bush.

For the November 2006 U.S. midterm elections, Fox endorsed candidates on the basis of their support of embryonic stem cell research, as different from adult stem cell research. He appeared at events for several candidates including New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez, Iowa Secretary of State and gubernatorial candidate Chet Culver,[9] Illinois congressional candidate Tammy Duckworth, Virginia senatorial candidate James Webb and Ohio senatorial candidate Congressman Sherrod Brown.

2006 political advertisement controversy

In late October 2006, Fox appeared in a television campaign commercial, endorsing Claire McCaskill, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Missouri and opposing incumbent senator Jim Talent for his specific opposition to federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. Fox also made similar ads in Wisconsin (supporting Governor Jim Doyle) and in Maryland, endorsing senatorial candidate Congressman Ben Cardin. All three of the endorsed politicians won their respective elections.

Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh caused controversy by claiming Fox was "either off his medication or acting" in the ad for McCaskill, calling Fox "really shameless".[10] According to the Washington Post, Limbaugh also told his listeners that Fox was "exaggerating the effects of the disease... He's moving all around and shaking, and it's purely an act."[11] Limbaugh later said he would apologize to Fox "if I am wrong in characterizing his behavior on this commercial as an act. . ."[12][13][14] Elaine Richman, a neuroscientist in Baltimore who co-wrote Parkinson's Disease and the Family offered the opinion that "Anyone who knows the disease well would regard his movement as classic severe Parkinson's disease. Any other interpretation is misinformed."[11]

Fox responded to Limbaugh's comments, ". . .it's difficult for people who don't have Parkinson's, or don't know about Parkinson's, to understand the symptoms and the way they work and the way medication works. You get what you get on any given day."[15]

Fox on living with Parkinson's disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a chronic neurological disorder which can be characterized by a triad of symptoms: rigidity (specifically "leadpipe" and "cogwheeling" rigidity), resting tremor, and bradykinesia (slow movement). At present, there is no cure, but medications provide some relief from the symptoms. Fox manages his symptoms using Sinemet,[16] a commercial form of Levodopa (L-dopa). L-dopa treatment decreases in effectiveness as it is used over a long period of time, so Fox, like many PD sufferers, extends the life of its effectiveness by using it as little as possible.

In his memoir, Lucky Man, Fox wrote that he did not take his medication prior to his testimony before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee in 1998. "I had made a deliberate choice to appear before the subcommittee without medication. It seemed to me that this occasion demanded that my testimony about the effects of the disease, and the urgency we as a community were feeling, be seen as well as heard. For people who had never observed me in this kind of shape, the transformation must have been startling."[17]

After years of L-dopa treatment, new symptoms may develop called dyskinesia, which are different than that of PD. In an April 2002 NPR interview,[16] Fox explained what he does when he becomes symptomatic during an interview:

Well, actually, I've been erring on the side of caution--I think 'erring' is actually the right word--in that I've been medicating perhaps too much, in the sense times the symptoms that people see in some of these interviews that have been on are actually dyskinesia, which is a reaction to the medication. Because if I were purely symptomatic with Parkinson's symptoms, a lot of times speaking is difficult. There's a kind of a cluttering of speech and it's very difficult to sit still, to sit in one place. You know, the symptoms are different, so I'd rather kind of suffer the symptoms of dyskinesia. . .this kind of weaving and this kind of continuous thing is much preferable, actually, than pure Parkinson's symptoms. So that's what I generally do... ...I haven't had any, you know, problems with pure Parkinson's symptoms in any of these interviews, because I'll tend to just make sure that I have enough Sinemet in my system and, in some cases, too much. But to me, it's preferable. It's not representative of what I'm like in my everyday life. I get a lot of people with Parkinson's coming up to me saying, 'You take too much medication.' I say, 'Well, you sit across from Larry King and see if you want to tempt it.'

Filmography

The Secret of My Success (1987) - Brantley Foster/Carlton Whitfield

Bibliography

  • Lucky Man: A Memoir (2002) (autobiography)

See also

References

  1. ^ http://www.filmreference.com/film/76/Michael-J-Fox.html
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Stated in interview on Inside the Actors Studio
  3. ^ a b "About Michael", Michael J. Fox biography from michaeljfox.org, accessed on October 31, 2006.
  4. ^ "Michael J. Fox Becomes American Citizen," from IMDb, accessed on October 28, 2006.
  5. ^ http://www.canadaswalkoffame.com/inductees/00_michaelj_fox.xml.htm
  6. ^ Transcript: Michael J Fox The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, October 26, 2006, accessed on 10 November, 2006.
  7. ^ Campaign 2004: Pennsylvania's U.S. Senate race provides clear choices, Jeffrey Cohan, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 18 October, 2004, accessed on 30 October, 2006
  8. ^ "Senate Approves Embryo Stem Cell Bill", Laurie Kellman, The Washington Post, 18 July, 2006, accessed on 31 October, 2006.
  9. ^ "EXCLUSIVE: Michael J. Fox to campaign for Culver" Thomas Beaumont, The DesMoines Register, 25 October, 2006, accessed on October 29, 2006
  10. ^ Limbaugh: Fox `shilling' in stem cell ad, Chicago Tribune, accessed on 27 October, 2006
  11. ^ a b "Rush Limbaugh On the Offensive Against Ad With Michael J. Fox." David Montgomery, Washington Post, October 25, 2006, accessed on 28 October, 2006
  12. ^ "Fox Responds To Limbaugh Accusation." CBS News, October 26, 2006, accessed on 30 October, 2006
  13. ^ Apology as Fox hounded over ad Rupert Cornwell, The New Zealand Herald 27 October, 2006, accessed on 29 October, 2006
  14. ^ "Media falsely reported Limbaugh apologized for attacking Michael J. Fox." Media Matters, 25 October, 2006, accessed on 10 November, 2006
  15. ^ "Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Oct. 25." MSNBC transcript, accessed on 30 October, 2006
  16. ^ a b "Fresh Air" interview by Terry Gross" National Public Radio, April 2002.
  17. ^ Excerpt from Lucky Man, Chapter 8: Unwrapping the Gift. From michaeljfox.org, accessed on 28 October, 2006.
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