I grew up watching a funny sitcom named Family Ties that I’m sure many people around my age still remember fondly. Having first aired in September of 1982 and running all the way through May of 1989, the family show starred a young and healthy actor by the name of Michael J. Fox, who played a boy named Alex P. Keaton. During it’s run, he went on to garner three Emmy’s and a Golden Globe for his acting in the show. And for all those who weren’t watching him in it, they probably came to know his name anyway when he appeared during the same period of time in Robert Zemeckis’s Back to the Future Trilogy as Marty McFly. As his career’s success story continued to rise, unbeknownst to everyone else, he we diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1991.
In the years that followed his initial diagnosis, Michael J. Fox did what most would probably do in his shoes after receiving that news, he went on with his life as best as he could and continued acting. Over the next five years he pursued his movie career and worked in over 15 of them, of which one of them, Doc Hollywood, is on my list of all-time favorites. By 1996, Fox went back to his roots and got a lead role as Deputy Mayor Mike Flaherty in the primetime television show Spin City, which quickly became a hit. During his four years on the show, while his health continued to decline, he earned praise for his role by receiving another Emmy and three more Golden Globe’s. After four seasons with the show, and opening up to the public about his deteriorating health condition, it became too much for him to continue acting in it. But what I have always loved best about Michael J. Fox is that he’s never been a quitter. And while he may have started disappearing from the acting spotlight around 2000, instead of giving up and letting the disease win, he created the Michael J. Fox foundation where he began to dedicate his life to finding a cure for Parkinson’s disease.
Since its inception, the Michael J. Fox foundation has gone on to invest over $325 million and become the largest private funder to finding the cure for this disease he suffers from. After six year went by where I only remember hearing his voice in some animated films, he appeared in a commercial in 2006 where he visibly showed signs of the disease. At the time, I can remember being shocked at how Alex P. Keaton and Marty McFly had grown up and gotten to that state of health. But I also remember being hugely impressed with how humble Michael J. Fox was in being able to show the world what Parkinson’s really does to a person.
Over the years that followed after that commercial aired, Fox spent most of his time supporting his foundation but had some noticeable cameos in shows such as Boston Legal, Scrubs, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and The Good Wife. But it is what is happening in his life during this fall television season that has proven to me that Michael J. Fox is an inspiration for anyone suffering form any disease or disability. Beginning this September, he is back to being the star of a family sitcom entitled The Michael J. Fox Show. It revolves loosely around his own life but is based on a news anchor named Mike Henry who initially gives up his career when he’s diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and then later returns to the limelight. I am excited for Fox and hope for the best that his show becomes widely successful as Family Ties and Spin City did because of him. I know at least for me that I’ll be watching as I don’t believe a disease has changed his gift of acting.
It is estimated that seven to ten million people today suffer from Parkinson’s disease and Michael J. Fox is one of them. For someone who had such a widely popular acting career as a young adult, Fox has proven to the world that even with having such a terrible disease, he will never give up fighting and doing what he does best, raising awareness of it, trying to find its cure, and all the while, showing everyone he still has what it takes to be an incredible actor even with all his disease’s limitations.
Michael J. Fox is truly an inspiration to me and I pray that God blesses this show and the rest of his life. And I hope that one day soon, his foundation will find that cure…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
