Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox
Michael Andrew Fox, OC, known as Michael J. Fox, is a Canadian-American actor, author, producer, and activist. With a film and television career spanning from the 1970s, Fox's roles have included Marty McFly from the Back to the Future trilogy; Alex P. Keaton from NBC's Family Ties, for which he won three Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award; and Mike Flaherty in ABC's Spin City, for which he won an Emmy, three Golden Globes, and two Screen Actors Guild...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth9 June 1961
CityEdmonton, Canada
CountryCanada
You know what's cool? My kids think I'm ordinary.
It is ironic that in the same year we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the discovery of DNA, some would have us ban certain forms of DNA medical research. Restricting medical research has very real human consequences, measured in loss of life and tremendous suffering for patients and their families.
You suffer the blow, but you capitalize on the opportunity left in its wake.
To be brutally honest, for much of that time, I was the only person in the world with Parkinson's. Of course, I mean that in the abstract. I had become acutely aware of people around me who appears to have the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, but as long as they didn't identify with me, I was in no rush to identify with them. My situation allowed, if not complete denial, at least a thick padding of insulation.
I owned a Ferrari, a Range Rover, a Mercedes 560SL convertible, a Jeep Cherokee and a Nissan 300ZX. I can't remember the intricate decision tree I had to climb in order to determine which one to drive to work on any given day - it probably had something to do with the weather, or which car had more gas in the tank, or upholstery that best matched whatever shirt I happened to throw on that morning.
Life is good, and there's no reason to think it won't be--right up until the moment when everything explodes into a fireball of tiny, unrecognizable fragments, or it all goes skidding sideways, through the guardrail, over the embankment, and down the mountain. This will happen (and probably more than once).
Control is illusory. No matter what university you go to, no matter what degree you hold, if your goal is to becomes master of your own destiny, you have more to learn.
I really love being alive. I love my family and my work. I love the opportunity I have to do things. That's what happiness is.
Listening to people espouse beliefs different from mine is informative, not threatening, because the only thing that can alter my worldview is a new and undeniable truth, and contrary to what Jack Nicholson says in 'A Few Good Men', "I CAN handle the truth.
My notion of spirituality was different than it is now, but even if I'd been the most fundamentalist of believers, I would have assumed that God had better things to do than arbitrarily smite me with shaking palsy.
I have no argument with those who see in organized religion a template or an imperative to live life according to a prescribed set of beliefs. Just give others the room, within the laws of civil society, to believe or not believe whatever they like.
As with any turning point or instance when a new road is chosen and an old one forsaken, there are consequences.
Do the right thing, and then do the next right thing, and that will lead you to the next right thing after that.
There's a rule in acting called, 'Don't play the result.' If you have a character who's going to end up in a certain place, don't play that until you get there. Play each scene and each beat as it comes. And that's what you do in life: You don't play the result.