Michael J. Fox's indomitable spirit has faced a relentless onslaught: a spinal tumour surgery in 2018, a shattering fall that broke his arm in multiple places, and a near brush with losing a limb.
During this tsunami of misfortune, he remained grounded. But that wasn’t always the case.
At twenty-nine, after completing the final Back to the Future film, Fox received a stark prognosis: within a decade, he would be completely debilitated from Parkinson's. Fox confessed:
“I was in an acid bath of fear and professional insecurity.”
Fox believed his diagnosis was a penalty for his fame.
He refrained from telling his family, his agents, or any of the film producers he was working with at the time about his disease, fearing his image as a kinetic celebrity would be incinerated.
During the next decade, a series of box-office flops followed:
For Love or Money (1993)
Greedy (1994)
The Frighteners (1996)
Coupled with an ongoing battle with Parkinson's, he fell into alcoholism.
"I didn't know what was happening. I didn't know what was coming. So what if I could just have four glasses of wine and maybe a shot?"
Eight years later, in 1998, before The National Enquirer could break the story of his diagnosis, he decided to take control of his life.
Reflecting on his watershed interview with Barbara Walters, he said:
“I felt like I stood there naked in the town square and said, ‘Look at me. This is what it is.’ What I didn’t realise was how many other people had been dying to do that.”
From that point forward, he became a voice for those struck by the stigma of Parkinson's disease.
The documentary Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie captures this profound metamorphosis. Trailer here.
“I’ve said Parkinson’s is a gift. It’s the gift that keeps on taking.”
Fox went on to say that Parkinson’s has affected his life in many positive ways: to date, the Michael J. Fox Foundation, a testament to his altruistic legacy, has outpaced even the U.S. government in funding $2 billion worth of Parkinson's research.
Fox had a single request for the Oscar-winning director of his documentary Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth):
"No violins.”
Have any of you seen this? Please share your thoughts below…
Check out the trailer here:
https://youtu.be/yHgMSR4F1Ak?si=XXrqD9DYZwCmDy5N
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I love this man more than anything!!!
Ryu Reeves I’m happy for you, Ryu!