Michael J. Fox

Fox has been married to actress Tracy Pollan since July 16, 1988. They met when Pollan played his girlfriend on Family Ties and later worked together in Bright Lights, Big City. They have four children: Sam, twin daughters Aquinnah and Schuyler, and Esmé.

While filming Doc Hollywood in 1991, Fox noticed a twitch in his finger and a sore shoulder. He was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson's disease at age 29 or 30, depending on the account. He kept the diagnosis private until 1998, when he disclosed it publicly.

Fox began acting as a teenager, appearing in the Canadian television series Leo and Me at 15. He moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting and initially struggled to find steady work. When he joined the Screen Actors Guild, another actor was already registered as Michael Fox, so he adopted the middle initial J as a tribute to character actor Michael J. Pollard.

His breakthrough came with NBC's Family Ties, in which he played Alex P. Keaton from 1982 to 1989. The audience response to Fox's performance led the series to shift its focus toward Alex after its first four episodes. Fox won three Primetime Emmy Awards for the role, in 1986, 1987, and 1988.

In 1985, Fox replaced Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly in Back to the Future. He filmed the movie while also working on Family Ties, rehearsing for the sitcom during the day and shooting the film at night. The film's success led to Back to the Future Part II in 1989 and Back to the Future Part III in 1990, and established Fox as an international film star.

Fox followed Back to the Future with a range of comedic and dramatic performances, including Teen Wolf, The Secret of My Success, Bright Lights, Big City, Casualties of War, Doc Hollywood and The Frighteners. He also appeared in The American President and Mars Attacks! during the 1990s.

He returned to television as Deputy Mayor Mike Flaherty on ABC's Spin City, which ran from 1996 to 2002. Fox served as an executive producer and won an Emmy Award in 2000, along with three Golden Globe Awards and two Screen Actors Guild Awards for the series. He left the regular cast after its fourth season, and Charlie Sheen took over the lead role.

Fox also became known for voice acting. He voiced Stuart Little in three films, Chance in Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey and Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco, and Milo James Thatch in Atlantis: The Lost Empire. Later television appearances included Boston Legal, Rescue Me, The Good Wife, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Designated Survivor. He played Louis Canning on The Good Wife and its spin-off The Good Fight.

His final major television role before stepping back from acting was Mike Henry in The Michael J. Fox Show, which ran from 2013 to 2014. Fox announced a retirement from acting in 2020 because increasing speech difficulties made the work unreliable. He later returned to acting with a role in the third season of Shrinking.

After making his diagnosis public, Fox focused much of his public work on Parkinson's disease research. He founded The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research in 2000, and the organisation became a major funder of research into treatments and a cure. He also testified before a U.S. Senate committee and appeared in a 2006 campaign advertisement supporting embryonic stem-cell research.

Fox wrote the memoirs Lucky Man, Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future: Twists and Turns and Lessons Learned, No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality and Future Boy: Back to the Future and My Journey Through the Space-Time Continuum. Always Looking Up won the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 2010.

The documentary Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, directed by Davis Guggenheim, was released by Apple TV+ in 2023. It follows Fox's acting career and experience with Parkinson's disease and won four Primetime Emmy Awards.

Fox has won five Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and a Grammy Award. His honours include appointment as an Officer of the Order of Canada, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 2022 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2025.

Fox continued to appear in projects connected with the character that made him famous. He lent his likeness and voice to Back to the Future: The Game, appearing alongside Christopher Lloyd, and made a cameo as Marty McFly in a 2015 television sketch celebrating the film's anniversary.

In 2024, Fox played guitar with Coldplay during the band's Glastonbury Festival set on the songs "Humankind" and "Fix You". In 2025, he appeared in a Boston Bruins video parodying Back to the Future and was cast in Shrinking, marking a return to scripted acting.