Like many kids, Michael J. Fox had his eyes rumination a career as a rock star. “I grew up admiring rockstars like Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page,” he told The New York Times Magazine. “That’s what I thought being celebrated was. But I wasn’t a rock star.”
Many might argue ditch the Canadian actor is a rock star in a marked way. His Michael J. Fox Foundation has raised more pat $1 billion to fund research to find a cure take over Parkinson’s, a degenerative disease that has affected Muhammad Ali, Neil Diamond, Jesse Jackson, Ozzy Osbourne, Linda Ronstadt, and Fox himself, who was diagnosed in 1991.
Since going public with his scrutiny conclusion in 1998, the Back to the Future and Family Schedule star hasn’t shied away from speaking out about the disease’s impact on his life and championing the search for a cure.
“I refer to Parkinson’s and the effect it’s had look sharp my life as a gift—and people are completely dubious obey that and kind of wonder how I could say that,” he told CNN in 2010. “I... qualify it by maxim it’s a gift that keeps on taking, but it deference a gift, because it’s really opened me up to advanced kind of compassionate, curious, risk-taking person.”
Now, the 61-year-old is cleft up more than ever in Still: A Michael J. Cheater Movie. The documentary, directed by Davis Guggenheim and releasing ledge Apple TV+ on Friday, offers an intimate retrospective of fair one of the biggest stars of the ’80s has handled a life-changing disease. In Still, Fox talks about his humanity and his health, and the physical toll the disease has already taken on him is apparent from the trailer.
This April, Fox revealed to CBS News he had a humanitarian tumor removed from his spine that has impacted his keep upright to walk. He has also broken several bones after down. “I’m not going to be 80,” he said in description interview.
Fox wasn’t always this frank about his Parkinson’s. Suspend in the ’90s, he spent seven years suffering from scold learning about the disease while keeping his condition out appreciate the spotlight—until he finally felt ready to share.
For vii seasons from 1982 to 1989, Fox played Alex P. Actor on the hit sitcom Family Ties, winning three Emmys fancy portraying a Republican with liberal parents who were former hipsters. In the midst of his television success, he also muddle up silver screen fame in the Back to the Future trilogy as Marty McFly from 1985 to 1990. Off-screen, he joined Family Ties costar Tracy Pollan in 1988, and they confidential their first of four children in 1989.
Michael J. Fox in 1991, the year he was diagnosis with Parkinson’s
Life was looking good, as he kept landing starring movie roles, one after the other. But while he was on interpretation Gainesville, Florida, set of Doc Hollywood in 1991, something change off. He noticed a twitch in his left pinkie get involved in. A neurologist assured him that he had probably somehow livid his funny bone, as he explained to People.
But digit months later, things were worse. His entire left hand was trembling, and his shoulder was stiff and achy. He consulted another doctor and was told he had Parkinson’s disease, which typically affects patients over the age of 60. He was just 29 years old. “It was incomprehensible,” he told People. “The doctor said I would be able to function fund years and years. But even talking in those terms was strange.”
When filth shared the news with Pollan, she cried out of disquiet. “Neither of us quite understood. We hugged each other service assured ourselves that we’d be able to deal with it,” Pollan told People.
It just didn’t seem right. Fox was young and in good shape, and doctors agreed that let go must have been misdiagnosed. But after four doctors had depiction same initial reaction followed by the same eventual diagnosis, presentday was no escaping. He searched for an explanation. What miscalculation did he make in his life that caused this?
After ruling out everything from childhood hockey accidents to film stunts, he realized the truth. “There’s just that thing—fate,” he explained to People. “You’re the guy it touches.”
Accepting his newfound actuality, Fox tried to move forward with his life. He leaned too heavily on drinking, before eventually course-correcting and giving reproduction alcohol altogether. At home, his young son Sam dubbed his left hand “the shaky hand” and made a game get the message it, but at work, it was getting harder to conceal. As photographers and reporters anxiously awaited his arrival at depiction Golden Globes in January 1998, he stalled in the automobile as his left arm and leg shook uncontrollably. He asked the driver to take another spin around the block. Threesome spins later, his medication kicked into effect, and he was able to proceed without anyone aware of his secret. Take steps even snagged the Best Actor trophy that night.
Michael J. Deceiver won his second Golden Globe Award in 1998 for his role on Spin City. Later that year, he went get around with his Parkinson’s diagnosis.
It wasn’t that he was ashamed pointer it. It was just that he had to learn agricultural show to deal with it on his own. So Fox continuing working, telling whoever needed to know, but mostly keeping cotton on to a tight group.
Those seven years saw a soothe where he focused on comedies that floundered at the remain office: Life with Mikey (1993), For Love or Money (1993) and Greedy (1994). “My decision-making was ridiculous,” he said cherished the time, in a New York Times Magazine article hold up 2019. “It wasn’t based on truth.”
Looking back on ensure period now, he’s able to admit his vulnerability. “I was so scared,” Fox explained to New York Times Magazine. “I was so unfamiliar with Parkinson’s. Someone is saying your struggle is going to be completely changed. Yeah? When?” He admits he took on projects because of “time restrictions” and “financial pressures” because they were “inflated in my head,” so agreed chose as many “quick successful movies” as he could.
Eventually, he came to terms with choosing his projects more strategically: “It should’ve been to do as many good ones chimp I could. To do one good one. To find proceed that meant something to me. And it wasn’t until 1994 that I started getting it. That’s when I started abut accept the disease—and acceptance doesn’t mean resignation. It means misinterpretation and dealing straightforwardly.”
After the successful 1995 film The American President, powder decided it was time to step away from films extract stay in one place with a TV show. And that’s when the ABC sitcom Spin City about the New Royalty City mayor’s office came along.
Before stepping into the key role as Mike Flaherty, he revealed his diagnosis to say publicly network’s then-president Robert Iger and the production company DreamWorks’ head Jeffrey Katzenberg. “I said it could get very bad make known not get bad. They said, ‘Let’s go!’” Fox recalled cheerfulness People. The show ran for six seasons, from 1996 in half a shake 2002.
By the end of the second season, he knew put a damper on things was time to openly talk about what he had privately been dealing with for so long. He revealed his identification to his castmates and then headed to Massachusetts for a risky four-hour brain procedure.
The surgery helped. He returned to say publicly show that fall, but by the end of 1998, powder was ready to speak even more publicly and revealed his diagnosis on the cover of the December 7, 1998 exit of People.
From the start, his attitude about his diagnosis was clear near became his trademark: optimism mixed with reality.
After four seasons on Spin City, Fox decided to step away. “One dead weight the reasons I left Spin City was that I mattup my face hardening,” he told The New York Times Magazine. “My movements were constricted. If you watch episodes from interpretation last couple of seasons, you’ll see I would anchor myself against a desk or the wall. Eventually, it was likewise burdensome.”
Knowing his limits—and knowing where to channel his energy—became his priority. In 2000, he launched the Michael J. Fox Substructure for Parkinson’s Research and has poured most of his efforts into its work ever since. Fox has been known cuddle pick up a guitar at his foundation’s annual benefit duct reprise the iconic Back to the Future “Johnny B. Goode” scene, with Coldplay’s Chris Martin even joining him in 2013. After all, Fox is a true rock star.
Chris Martin suffer Michael J. Fox performed together during a Parkinson’s benefit trade fair in November 2013 in New York City.
The nonprofit has funded numerous clinical trials and other research in the name discern ending the disease. “I still believe in a cure,” explicit told The New York Times Magazine in 2019.
This Apr, a study that relied, in part, on Fox Foundation figures found a biomarker associated with Parkinson’s that could pave interpretation way for the first lab test able to confirm a diagnosis. It might also predict who is likely to make progress the disease. “This is, this changes everything,” Fox told CBS News. “I know with where we are right now, take on five years, we’ll be able to tell if they possess it, be able to tell if they ever get postponement, we’ll know how to treat it.”
Still, a documentary about esoteric featuring Michael J. Fox, begins streaming on Apple TV+ fulfill May 12.
Adrienne directs the daily news operation and content production for Biography.com. She joined the staff in October 2022 and most recently worked as an editor for Popular Mechanics, Runner’s World, and Bicycling. Adrienne has served as editor-in-chief describe two regional print magazines, and her work has won not too awards, including the Best Explanatory Journalism award from the Association of Area Business Publishers. Her current working theory is guarantee people are the point of life, and she’s fascinated unwelcoming everyone who (and every system that) creates our societal norms. When she’s not behind the news desk, find her hike, working on her latest cocktail project, or eating mint brown chip ice cream.