Childhood
Michael J. Fox was born Michael Andrew Fox in 1961 to parents William and Phyllis in Edmonton, the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta. (He later adopted the /"J/" in homage to legendary actor Michael J. Pollard.) A self-described "army kid," Fox moved several times during his childhood with his parents, brother and his three sisters. The Foxes eventually took root in Burnaby, British Columbia (a suburb of Vancouver) when William Fox retired from the Canadian Armed Forces in 1971.
Living and working with Parkinson's disease
Although he didn't share the news with the public for another seven years, Fox was diagnosed with young-onset Parkinson's disease in 1991, at the age of 29. After revealing his condition in 1998, he became involved in campaigning for increased research into Parkinson's disease. Fox announced its retirement from "Spin City/" in January 2000, effective at the end of its fourth season and its 100th episode. Expressing pride in the series, its talented cast, writers and creative team, he explained that the new priorities made it the right time to move away from the demands of a weekly series. Later that year, he launched the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, which the New York Times called "the world's most credible voice on Parkinson's research." . Today, the world's largest nonprofit funder of Parkinson's disease drug development, the Foundation has galvanized the search for a cure for Parkinson's disease (PD). Fox is widely admired for his tireless work as a patient advocate.
In 2011, he starred in /"Larry Versus Michael J. Fox/", the season eight finale of Larry David's popular HBO comedy /"Curb Your Enthusiasm/". In the spring of 2009, he played the embittered and drug addict Dwight. in Denis Leary's hit FX Network drama /"Rescue Me/", a role that earned him his fifth Emmy Award. His recurring guest role in 2006 on the ABC legal drama /"Boston Legal/" was nominated for an Emmy, and he appeared as Dr. Kevin Casey on the NBC series /"Scrubs/" in 2004.
In 2012, Fox announced plans to return to acting full-time. In 2013, he returned to primetime television as Mike Henry on NBC's "The Michael J. Fox Show." The show, which quickly gained national attention, centered on a beloved news anchor and family man returning to work after a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. .
Fox also continued to delight fans by playing cunning lawyers in multi-episode guest arcs on hit dramas. In 2020, he joined the cast of /"The Good Fight/", reprising his role on CBS's "The Good Wife" (from 2010 to 2016) as Lewis Canning, who used his Tardive Dyskinesia to advantage of its customers. In 2018, on the ABC drama series "Designated Survivor", he played Ethan West, a Washington lawyer appointed as a special prosecutor to investigate former President Cornelius Moss.
Fox has received several lifetime achievement awards for his acting career, including Hoerzu Magazine's Golden Camera Award in 2011 and the National Association of Broadcasters' Distinguished Service Award in 2010.
In the wings
Fox is also the bestselling author of four books. His most recent memoir, No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality, was released on November 17, 2020. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future, a collection of wisdom for graduates, was released in April 2010 Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist, published in April 2009, debuted at number two on the New York Times bestseller list. It was accompanied by a prime-time ABC-TV special that was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Nonfiction Special; Additionally, his audio recording made by Fox won the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album, an honor for which all three books were nominated. His first book, the 2002 memoir Lucky Man, was also a New York Times bestseller and a national bestseller.
Fox is the recipient of honorary degrees from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, New York University, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the University of British Columbia, and Stony Brook University. He has also received numerous humanitarian awards for his work and was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2010.
Fox has spoken and written extensively about his predisposition to approach challenges, including his Parkinson's disease, through a lens of optimism and humor. His message has always been one of gratitude for the support he has received from his fellow Parkinson's patients, as well as hope and encouragement for every decision to act, no matter how small, to advance research towards finding a cure.
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