Michael J. Fox (born Michael Andrew Fox on June 9, 1961) is a Canadian-born film and television actor. His best known roles include Marty McFly from the Back to the Future trilogy (1985-1990); Alex P. Keaton from Family Ties (1982-1989), 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. As the symptoms of his disease worsened, he retired from full-time acting in 2000.
Michael was born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The son of William and Phyllis Fox, his family lived in various cities and towns across Canada because of his father's career in the Canadian Forces. The family finally settled in Vancouver, British Columbia, in the suburb of Burnaby when his father, William Fox, retired in 1971.
Fox co-starred in the Canadian television series Leo and Me at age 15 and in 1979 at 18 he moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. He was "found" by producer Ronald Shedlo and made his American television debut in the television movie Letters from Frank and was credited under the name "Michael Fox". He intended to continue to use the name, but when he registered with the Screen Actors Guild, which does not allow duplicate registration names to avoid credit ambiguities, he discovered that Michael Fox, a veteran character actor, was already registered under the name. As he explained in his autobiography, Lucky Man, and in interviews, he needed to come up with a different name. He did not like the sound of "Andrew" or "Andy" Fox. He decided against using his middle initial because he didn't want to fit into a Canadian stereotype, as in Michael "Eh?" Fox, and because he did not want teen fan magazines referring to him as "Michael, A Fox!". He decided to adopt a new middle initial and settled on "J" in reference to character actor Michael J. Pollard. Sometimes he jokes that the J stands for "Jenius" or "Jenuine".
Tracy Pollan on 16 July 1988 at West Mountain Inn in Arlington, VT. The couple have four children: Samuel Michael (born May 30, 1989), twins Aquinnah Kathleen and Schuyler Frances (born February 15, 1995), and Esmé Annabelle (born November 3, 2001). Fox holds dual Canadian-U.S. citizenship.Although symptoms of the disease started to show in 1990 while shooting the movie Doc Hollywood, in 1991 he was diagnosed with young-onset Parkinson's disease, but didn't go public until 1998. Since then he has been a strong advocate of Parkinson's disease research, especially embryonic stem cell research, which many in the scientific community believe may one day help sufferers of Parkinson's and other debilitating illnesses. His foundation, The Michael J. Fox Foundation, was created to help advance this research.
In 1998 the Alberta native was honoured with a star on Canada's Walk of Fame.
In 2000, he announced that he would be retiring from the lead role of Spin City due to his illness. (A new lead character was created for Fox's replacement, Charlie Sheen.)
Michael is an outspoken Detroit Tigers fan, attending all 2006 World Series games.
