Meekographics

Michael J. Fox, OC (born June 9, 1961 as Michael Andrew Fox), is a Canadian–American actor, author, comedian, producer, activist and voice-over artist. With a film and television career spanning from the 1970s, Fox’s roles have included Marty McFly from the Back to the Future trilogy (1985–1990); Alex P. Keaton from Family Ties 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.

Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1991, and disclosed his condition to the public in 1998. Fox semi-retired from acting in 2000 as the symptoms of his disease worsened. He has since become an activist for research toward finding a cure. This led him to create the Michael J. Fox Foundation, and on March 5, 2010, Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet gave him a honoris causa doctorate for his work in advocating a cure for Parkinson’s disease.[1]

Since 2000 Fox has mainly worked as a voice over actor in films such as Stuart Little and Atlantis: The Lost Empire, and taken minor TV roles such as in Boston Legal, “The Good Wife”" and Scrubs. He has also released three books, Lucky Man: A Memoir (2002), 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). He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2010.

Fox manages the symptoms of his Parkinson’s disease with the drug Sinemet,[34] and he has also had a thalamotomy in 1998.[35]

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”.[36] His first book, Lucky Man focused on how after seven years of unacceptance of the disease he set up the Michael J Fox Foundation, stopped drinking and began to be an advocate of PD sufferers.[37]

In an April 2002 NPR interview,[34] 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.”

In 2006, Fox starred in a campaign ad for Claire McCaskill expressing her support for stem cell research. In the ad, he visibly showed the effects of his Parkinson’s medication. “As you might know, I care deeply about stem cell research. In Missouri, you can elect Claire McCaskill, who shares my hope for cures. Unfortunately, Senator Jim Talent opposes expanding stem cell research. Senator Talent even wanted to criminalize the science that gives us the chance for hope. They say all politics is local, but that’s not always the case. What you do in Missouri matters to millions of Americans, Americans like me.”[38][39] The New York Times called it “one of the most powerful and talked about political advertisements in years” and polls indicated that the commercial had a statistical impact on the way voters voted.[40] His second book Always Looking Up: The Adventures Of An Incurable Optimist describes his life between 1999 and 2009, with much of the book centered on how Fox got into campaigning for stem cell research.[37] On March 31, 2009, Fox appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show with Dr. Oz to publicly discuss his condition as well as his book, his family and his prime time special which aired May 7, 2009 (Michael J. Fox: Adventures of an Incurable Optimist).[41]

His work led him to be named one of the 100 people “whose power, talent or moral example is transforming the world” in 2007 by the Time magazine.[42] On March 5, 2010, Fox received an honorary doctorate in medicine from Karolinska Institutet for his contributions to research in Parkinson’s disease.[43] He also has received an honorary doctor of laws from the University of British Columbia