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Florida, 1990.
I woke up with a ferocious hangover.
I placed my left hand across the bridge of my nose to block the sunlight.
A moth's wing fluttered against my right cheek.
I put my hand in front of my face
so I could finger-flick the little beastie across the room.
That's when I noticed my pinkie.
Auto animated.
"For Christ's sake, it's just your freaking finger."
But it wasn't mine.
Shit. It was somebody else's.
Had I hit my head?
The tape of the previous night's events was grainy at best.
Woody Harrelson was in the bar the night before.
Maybe we'd had one of our legendary drunken fights.
But I couldn't recall any such melee.
I did recall how my bodyguard had to prop me up against the doorframe
while he fumbled the key into the door of my suite.
But I didn't feel any bumps. Fuck.
Action!
Action, Michael!
Michael, Michael!
Here is as hot as you get in the history of this business.
And the winner is Michael J. Fox.
We're rolling.
In the face of all evidence to the contrary...
- Very, very still. Mark. - ...I was in an acid bath of fear...
and professional insecurity.
The trembling was a message...
from the future.
Everyone talks now about owning their narrative.
So, the sad sack story is,
"Michael J. Fox gets this debilitating disease, and it crushes him."
Yeah, that's boring.
My hair went curly, like, at like, like, at 49.
It never was curly, and all of a sudden it went--
I woke up one morning in Santa Barbara and my hair was curly.
- I think it's a good look. - I can put some jam in it.
- No. - I can put a hat on.
It's just caring too much about what I look like for a documentary.
Yeah. It's you.
Okay, now look at me.
There you go.
- Coming in. - Uh-oh.
Wha-- Guys, at a certain point it's just--
- it just is what it is. - Just right here.
- Hey. - Hey.
- How you doing? - Yeah, I'm doing good.
Watch me.
- How's your day going so far? - So far?
So far it's successful.
Everyone knows you have Parkinson's,
but when they see you walking, they're like, "Oh, fuck."
Yeah.
Good. Stop and reset.
Good. There we go.
The walking thing really freaks people out.
Look.
But I won't hide it from you.
- Hey. - Hey.
And you can do with it what you will.
If you pity me, it's never gonna get to me.
I'm not pathetic. I'm-- I got shit going on.
Hi, how you doing?
Take your time.
I'm a tough son of a bitch.
I'm a cockroach, and I've been through a lot of stuff.
- You can't kill a cockroach. - Can't kill a cockroach.
Nice and slowly, nice and slowly.
There you go. Beautiful.
- Hey, how are you? - Good. How are you?
Good. Stop and reset.
Mr. Fox.
That happened.
- You got it? - All right-- I'm okay. Thank you.
Okay. Nice to meet you, sir.
Nice to meet you. You knocked me off my feet.
Before Parkinson's, what did it mean to be still?
I wouldn't know.
I wouldn't know. I was never still.
I can't pretend to remember my two-year-old state of mind.
Knee-high, weighing little more than a wet beach towel, and slippery quick.
But it's likely that my motive in wandering out the back door
was not to escape.
More likely, I failed to recognize boundaries.
When the phone rang a few minutes later,
the proprietor of the candy store tried to contain his amusement.
"Got your son here."
I can easily picture my mother in utter disbelief that I'd bolted.
"Let him have a candy or something.
My husband will be right there to pick him up and pay for it."
"He's got money."
"He's got quite a bit of money, as a matter of fact."
As a kid, I lacked the faith required to be still.
It is one of the great ironies in my life.
I couldn't be still until I could literally...
no longer keep still.
When my baby sister arrived, I wasn't jealous.
What the hell, the more the merrier.
But by the time I was six and she was three, we were the same size.
I have a specific memory of being asked if we were twins,
but once told that my twin was actually three years younger,
people's reactions changed.
I realized that I was expected to be bigger.
This was a new one on me.
I couldn't do "bigger."
I was the shortest in my class.
Shorter than any of the people I played hockey with.
I was the guy who'd climb down into the grate and get the ball.
But I used to get my ass kicked. I was a little guy.
I'd get stuffed in lockers.
If big guys are purposely coming after you, and then fucking hammering you...
But I'd always relied on my ability to run from any potential bully.
Just when the earth seemed to be sliding out from beneath me,
I stumbled onto a foothold.
Drama class.
That's where the girls were.
And I was Rumpelstiltskin in a play.
- You were Rumpelstiltskin? - I was Rumpelstiltskin, yeah.
You also looked five years younger.
Yeah, I was just a little elf.
I was cute and elfin. I was a cute elf.
A cute elf.
In drama class, you could be big.
In drama class, you could be anything.
But my head was up my ass if you asked my father.
Dad was a pragmatist, determined to protect his family from romantic fantasy.
He'd had dreams as a young boy, but they'd been effectively knocked out of him.
He had a certain amount of rage.
You'd see his lip curl, and you knew you were in trouble.
Then you'd go, "Oh, shit. I'm fucked now."
A call from the principal's office meant a harsh reprimand from Dad.
And he'd say, "Goddamn it! Goddamn it."
I began to spend more of my time smoking and drinking.
And I became a serial fender bender...
inflicting damage to my dad's cars.
So, in his mind, you're a fuckup.
Yeah, a potential fuckup.
Hey. Looking good.
These shoes are terrific. Now I got a fighting chance.
When I was 16,
my acting teacher thrust a newspaper into my hands.
"They're looking for a bright 12-year-old kid,
and hell, you'd be the brightest 12-year-old kid they're ever gonna meet."
But I'm gonna blow it, Leo. All those people looking at me.
We're ready for you in Makeup.
You're gonna make history, kid.
Gotta grow an inch by Friday.
I got the part. It was that easy.
Basketball tryouts?
No. Penny Montgomery.
If I stand real close, I can't see her face.
The casting director believed I held an advantage.
American producers would be eager to hire an actor
who looked young enough to play a kid.
But that meant moving to Hollywood and dropping out of high school.
And that seemed inconceivable.
Dad, "Are you sure this is what you wanna do?"
Me, "Absolutely."
"You're that confident?"
"Absolutely."
And then Dad shocked me.
"Well, if you're gonna be a lumberjack,
you might as well go to the goddamn forest."
So, secretly, he believed in you.
Yeah.
Dad agreed to underwrite the adventure,
putting the whole trip on his Visa card.
I remember thinking just how far Dad and I had come over the past few weeks.
He advised me that he'd just drive to the appointments
and debrief me after each one.
His way of signaling to me that this was my show, not his.
Hello.
No, that's perfect.
Every audition earned a callback,
and three of the callbacks produced solid offers.
"You've got the world by the tail," Dad said. "Just hold on."
My studio apartment was in the slums of Beverly Hills.
It's the prettiest house I ever seen in my life.
Well, I was just thinking I'm glad you came home with me.
The apartment was 17-by-12 feet. One mattress, one hot plate,
with a microscopic bathroom and the domicile's one and only sink.
I washed my hair with Palmolive and my dishes with Head & Shoulders.
I really had a great time tonight.
I enlisted Ronald McDonald as my exclusive nutritionist.
- We alone? - Alone?
I mean, is your husband lurking about?
But by the spring of 1982...
Schweitzer.
...the scenario was grim.
What's going on here? What is this?
Please relax, Mr. Wyatt. I'm going to examine your chest.
- Hey, is this a joke or something? - Hi.
I continued to pick up acting jobs,
but they barely earned me enough to live on.
My agent took 10% of my paycheck.
Your paycheck.
And then there was the photographer, publicist or lawyer.
- It says "$1.25." - Yeah, so?
I'm telling you it's wrong. It's a mistake!
I worked hard for this. It's not fair.
I worked too hard for this.
I began to liquidate.
I sold off my sectional sofa section by section.
I came close on a couple of movies. Most notably, Ordinary People.
But Robert Redford seemed less than impressed by my reading.
He spent the audition flossing his teeth.
Why did they have to come here in the first place?
The rejection can be so matter-of-fact
that there's a danger you'll get numbed by it.
Don't listen to those that don't know what they're talking about.
I was down to days.
So, you're running out of money. That's all that--
I wa-- "Running out" is generous. I had no money.
- I was taking jam packets from IHOPs. - What's that?
- Like, just-- Smucker's.
- Why? - To eat.
- Come on. - And I wa--
I was finding quarters and nickels and dimes,
and I'd use that to get to the next moment. I was living beat to beat.
And I said, "I gotta get out of here. I have no money,
and I owe the IRS money, and I'm ducking the landlord, and I got no phone."
I mean, I have to walk to the airport.
- What was the expectation? - I-- My expectation was,
my brother's a construction superintendent,
and I'd be working on his sites picking up nails.
But I still had a chip and a chair.
A what?
Playing poker, as long as you got a chip left and a chair to sit in,
you're in the game. You got a chip and a chair.
This was it. This was my last shot.
"You gotta stop hawking me about this kid,"
producer Gary David Goldberg told the casting director of his new sitcom.
We don't wanna get into an area where we're bringing someone on
who's not funny. You know, and there's not any comedy there.
"There's no way I'm gonna change my mind on this.
He's just not our guy."
I think we all feel that Alex is super competent,
you know, editor of the paper, but sympathetic underneath.
"I know what I want, and I'm telling you,
I don't want Michael Fox playing Alex Keaton."
No. I want this job. I need it. I can do it.
Everywhere I've been, there's always been something wrong.
Too young, too old, too short, too tall. Whatever the exception is, I can fix it.
I can be older. I can be taller. I can be anything.
- Here we go. Ready? In five. - Five, four, three, two!
Wait, I'm sorry, my script just went to pieces.
- Where is it? Shit. - Top of 11.
"It's his first day of kindergarten, Mom.
He doesn't wanna be late. This could affect his entire life."
"Mal's right. After all, this is my alma mater. I am a legend there."
And they laughed. And I just went--
It was just, like... a wash of, like, "Wow."
"I got one too."
There's no drink, there's no drug, there's no woman, there's no-- nothing
that can touch that moment for me as a 22-year-old guy
who'd been fighting for three years to make it.
"Good, good, good, good, good."
Laughter is-- You can't help it.
I-- Like, I just found something,
a way to communicate with you that you didn't expect, you have no--
you have no answer for it, except to make a noise.
"...kidding me? Come"--
If you didn't have any, you'd have to let air out. It's really honest.
Gary David Goldberg leaned back in his chair and said,
"Why didn't anybody tell me about this kid?"
Great.
I was standing at a pay phone outside of a Pioneer Chicken franchise.
While my agent was talking about a seven-figure salary,
I stared at the menu wishing I had $1.99 to buy the buffalo wings.
The contract could not be officially locked in, however,
as the NBC executive wunderkind head of programming, Brandon Tartikoff,
was absolutely against giving me the role of Alex Keaton.
This guy is very proficient, and he hits the comedy,
but I don't think we're talking about somebody who's gonna be on a lunch box.
It would be a relatively simple matter for me to be fired and replaced.
The argument raged on right up to the day we began shooting the pilot.
So, welcome to Family Ties, everybody.
Andy, we ready to go?
Whatever happened in the next hour was gonna decide my fate.
The guys will bring down the house lights.
Start your VTRs, please. Start your machines.
Okay, Paul, you got the first shot.
- Have a good show, everyone. - Three, two...
Here we go. We're ready. And action. Go.
Hello. May I tell him who's calling?
Kimberly Blanton.
- Kimberly. - I'm sorry...
From the moment I ad-libbed the initial P...
Alex P. Keaton here.
...I felt as though the audience was aware of my desperate days
leading up to that moment.
Hi. Sorry I had to answer the door myself. Our butler's off tonight.
If Kimberly doesn't like your family for who they are,
then maybe she isn't worth caring about at all, don't you think?
Are you gonna wear your hair like that, or are you gonna put it up?
Michael J. Fox!
This is working.
I just knew at that moment, like... it was all gonna come true.
Mom, what are you doing?
The situation comedy was supposed to focus on the parents.
No bananas, Ma.
Instead, America fell in love with their son.
Play towards Michael. That'd help her. And here on out to play towards Michael.
Okay, he'll be fine.
His performance is so good.
Watching him, you are struck by his exquisite sense of timing.
I find a sense of humor in a man to be incredibly sexually exciting.
A priest and a rabbi are in a room.
When did you discover that you liked to make people laugh?
When I was growing up, I was a small kid.
It was either, you know, funny or fight, so...
The idea is always if you can make the big guy laugh
before you can make him mad at you, it's a safer way to go.
- Cue. - Alex, come on, admit it.
You're really special.
All right. I--
I don't wanna get in an argument about this.
Mr. Fox sent me this lunch box.
Affectionately signed, "Brandon, love and kisses, Michael J. Fox."
When I'm with you, I can see in your eyes
that you've got a great one-liner and that it's hard to get that to your mouth.
I-- It just sucks. It's really hard.
When I'm really in need of dopamine and--
at the end of a dose-- I'm getting close to that now.
I get frozen and I-- Frozen physically and frozen facially.
It's a mask. I have a parkinsonian mask.
I-- Just, I have to really work--
to struggle to smile, to show expression.
It gives me a kind of blank countenance.
If you were having pure exhilaration,
- what would your face look like? - Like this.
This is what you did for a living.
Yeah.
And stop.
Okay. You feel warmed up? Is it making you light-headed?
It's making me crazy.
Okay, we're gonna do some pages from your book.
Okay. "After my dad retired from the Army..."
Little straighter.
Why do you wanna tell this story right now?
"As a kid, many things seemed to come easily to me.
I'd read a big picture book cover to cover..."
My world is getting smaller.
I love my mind, and I love the place it takes me,
and I just don't want that to get cut short.
"As a kid, many things seemed to come easily to me..."
Is there gonna be a moment-- maybe it's 20 years from now--
where you can't tell your story?
Well, if I'm here 20 years from now,
I'll be-- I'd either be cured or, like, a pickle.
"I had to eat my lunch through a s-- I had to eat my lunch through a straw...
with several layers of form-fitted rubber foam
studded with yak hair affixed on my face." That's actually really, like--
- Who wrote that stuff? - Some asshole.
It was a low-budget B movie.
But down the street were professionals.
What were those guys doing?
They're with the new Zemeckis and Spielberg movie. Who's in it?
Crispin Glover.
Ouch.
It stung a little bit that Crazy Crispin was gonna do a Spielberg movie
while I--
Thrown away on some B-grade high school werewolf movie.
A day or two after our Christmas break,
Gary David Goldberg had summoned me into his office.
"I have a confession to make," Gary began.
"Just before the start of the season, Steven sent me a copy of this script."
Whenever Gary said "Steven," I knew he meant Spielberg.
"Steven had wanted you for the lead role.
They came to me asking if there was any way I could let you outta the show.
I didn't mention it to you then, because it was just impossible.
They started shooting a couple of months ago with Eric Stoltz,
but they don't think he's the right fit for the role.
It's gonna be expensive, but they wanna reshoot all of his stuff."
My head was spinning.
Anything else?
"You're not gonna miss an hour of work on the show."
The deal was made.
A Teamster driver would pick me up at 9:30 a.m.
and take me to Paramount...
where I would spend the day shooting Family Ties.
Hi, how you doing?
You think you can handle both jobs?
That's for me.
Then at 6:00, another Teamster driver would pick me up and shuttle me
to whatever far-flung location we were based at that evening.
Action!
Wait a minute, Doc.
Are you telling me that you built a time machine...
out of a DeLorean?
I would work on the film until just before sunrise.
At that point, I'd climb into the back of a production van
with a pillow and a blanket
and yet another Teamster driver would take me home again.
I catch two or three hours of sleep...
before Teamster driver number one would reappear at my apartment,
let himself in with a key I provided,
brew a pot of coffee,
turn on the shower.
And then start the whole process all over again.
Hello!
- Alex, you're an hour late. - Yes?
So, how's your new job, Alex?
It's great. It's really great.
That's my ride. I gotta be in early today.
- Mark. - Action!
Okay, guys and dolls!
For the next three-and-a-half months,
the combination of Back to the Future and Family Ties swallowed me whole.
Take 22.
I experienced confusion as to what set I was on
and basically who I was in the first place.
You've worked every afternoon and evening for the past two weeks.
How could any of this shit be any good?
- How you doing today? - I'm good. How are you?
Good. Tired.
- What happened here? - I smashed my head.
I was walking really fast, and I fell into this piece of furniture.
I didn't hit the furniture the way I usually do, and I hit it with my face.
And I-- For a second, I was lying on the ground,
and I said, "I think I fucked myself."
And then I started to bruise, and my eyes went black. My--
This eye went really black. And then they did X-rays,
and they said that "You broke all the bones in your cheek and your eye."
And they did surgery and went in and fixed it and put pins in it.
I had pins here and here.
- Here. Yeah. - You had pins in there?
So, yeah. So, I smashed my face up, but I do that.
Like, I do, like-- It's part of the deal is that I fall.
- It's the real deal. - Parkinson's and gravity are real.
Yeah, gravity is real. Even if you're only falling from my height.
Okay, we're back to business.
The story of me, take two.
Jesus, my head.
Where the hell am I?
Hello?
"Mike, we just saw the movie."
What movie?
"Your movie. Back to the Future."
The person calling me was my agent.
I'm sorry, Pete. I know I suck.
If this was the beginning of the end, it had been a hell of a ride.
I'm Roger Ebert, film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times.
And I'm Gene Siskel, film critic of the Chicago Tribune.
First, Back to the Future. A time travel movie, a category I hate,
because you're never really gonna change things when they go back in the past,
because that would mean that the future that we saw at the beginning of the film
would've had to have been a lie, right?
But, Back to the Future managed to beat that problem,
and it delighted me in so doing.
This is my favorite film of the summer movie season.
And Michael J. Fox gives an absolutely winning performance.
The ride, it turned out, was only beginning.
How are you doing with the early word on this movie?
The early word is "spectacular."
- Kind of frightening, yes. - Scary. Yeah, it's really scary.
- Will you be the same guy? - Yeah.
- Will you handle it well? - Yeah.
There's a newsstand in my old Studio City neighborhood.
Every now and then, I'd stop by.
No, I wasn't checking out Hustler or Juggs,
but surveying the versions of myself on display.
GQ. US. People. Rolling Stone.
Playgirl. TigerBeat. TV Guide.
Variety. McCall's. The Star. The Globe.
Seventeen, 16, Mad, Cracked, and on and on.
Everywhere I looked, I saw my image reflected back at me.
None of them was a true representation of my real self...
Whoever that was.
Here is as hot as you get in the history of this business. Here is Michael J. Fox.
Michael J. Fox!
Michael J. Fox is with us tonight. Yeah!
Doesn't that make you just feel fabulous?
That's great. It cost a lot to fly my whole family down here, but I'm glad--
First of all, congratulations.
Back to the Future is still number one at the box office.
But it's gonna get some new competition this weekend
from another Michael J. Fox movie. Is it gonna give it a run for its money?
I don't know.
The popularity of Michael J. Fox is a phenomenon.
Well, you're just gonna have to tell Spielberg,
I'm not prepared to make that commitment.
What is the secret of your success?
This is my--
I can't believe I was about to say acting is my life.
TV's Emmy Awards were handed out, and the winners are...
I don't believe this! Great!
I feel four feet tall.
And I always see your name with "adorable" in front of it.
Now, does this get a little annoying after a while?
Yeah, well, I-- My mom writes for these magazines.
Is that right?
I think Michael Fox is cute.
I think Michael Fox is really cute. And I'd go out with him anytime.
Don't get me wrong. I had a really, really good time.
- Who are you sleeping with? - Who are you sleeping with?
I wasn't gonna ask you. It's Shelley. I was gonna go right back to--
But you did.
Because--
I still don't get it. I'm like--
I mean, I still have no idea what people see, but--
I have a favorite beer. I don't know if I can mention it,
but it's a Canadian beer, and it has a certain antlered animal on the front.
One morning, I peered out the window to see a beer delivery truck.
"There's a lot more where this came from," the delivery guy said.
I owned a Ferrari, a Range Rover, a Jeep Cherokee,
a Mercedes 560 SL convertible.
The booze was free, and I was usually the guest of honor.
I had a guy who pulled over my Ferrari one time on the way to work.
And-- And the cop leans in, he goes,
"Mike, is that you?" And I say, "Yeah." He said,
"This is a big, heavy car. You gotta be careful."
I was going 90 down Ventura Boulevard in a Ferrari.
And he said, "Love the show."
I said, "That's it?"
- So, five steps forward. - Yeah.
If your left foot catches, you stop and reset when you can.
I'm not gonna stop you, but you stop when you can.
- It's locking-- My knees are locking out. - Good.
- Yeah, I can do this without-- - So, settle into this.
Bounce into it. Feel those heels. Turn. Know that you're settled.
There's that period of time
- that I was the king of the world. - Good. Golf stance again, don't lock out.
And I was playing a part. I was playing a--
And then that was worth feeling sorry for.
How's Tracy?
Married to me. Still.
With the life of a young celebrity that gets a lot of fame really fast,
you don't know what's real.
People taking pictures of-- in my bushes of me in the swimming pool.
Walking down the street with a hat on and glasses and down and hiding.
It's all bullshit. It's not the real stuff.
- Big step right. - No.
Big step right. Good. Golf stance again.
Good. This is the stuff that we need to work on.
Slowing down your thought process, right?
- And this is the area that you need work. - Yeah, I do.
- So, it's slowing down. - Yeah.
Right? So, stand up, hit the golf stance. In your heels.
- Are you there? - Yeah.
Do that quarter step around the stool.
Parkinson's was just a disaster.
But it's so real.
When my arm would seize up or my hand would twitch,
that's real. It's real.
Turn. Make sure you're settled.
Good. Make sure you're settled.
You can't walk and you can't go to the bathroom.
I mean, that's real.
Slowly forward.
Beautiful. Awesome. I know you can do it.
- I can do it. That's the thing-- - Right?
That's the thing that kills me, is just that they're not--
- The instant lack of control. - Right.
It's not like, "I'm losing control, I'm losing control."
- It's like, boom! I'm flying-- - So, that's what we--
But that's what we always talk about is that, your speed, because of who you are.
- I wanna get it done. Yeah. - Just slow it down, slow it down.
Because you're athletic enough to then have time to compensate
- for something that goes wrong. - Yeah, why dash when you can flush?
Right. See? That was even better.
Talking to you as a movie star is different than talking to you as a TV--
Well, I'm much more impressive now.
Well, you are. Has your life changed because of this?
Not really.
- To Joan. - To who?
Joan. J-O-A-N.
Whether it's signing an autograph
or dashing off to your next interview,
it's all part of selling Michael J. Fox and the movie.
His family must have wondered how he'd turn out
when he dropped out of high school.
When we go down to visit him, we try and spend our time with Michael,
and we'll go with him to any such events that he wants us to.
But, no, we don't--
We don't get tied up in the show business end of it all, really.
In the backyard, he's just Mike Fox,
not the star, Michael J. Fox people have come to know.
He says trips home from Los Angeles help keep his feet on the ground.
They're not gonna let me get away with being a jerk.
Very quiet, please.
I guess you could say I've always wanted to excel, even as a small--
No. Ready. Count me down again will you, Andy? I gotta get--
Five, four, three, two.
I don't know, I guess you could say I've always wanted to excel,
even as a small boy.
I mean, it wasn't the winning that mattered to me...
it was the pure enjoyment of the competition.
And I've always felt that deep in my heart--
Totally losing momentum. Can we just start from the top?
- Absolutely. - Trying to get a kick on this.
On the set of Family Ties, I was welcomed back like the prodigal son.
I was the star, after all.
Mikey, you're gonna do this now?
It just occurred to me, it doesn't work over there.
Does this bother you?
- Does this screw you? - No, we just gotta redo
- more shots.
- How many? - Thirty-eight.
And while I would have never dreamed of lording it over anyone,
the fact is, I could get away with the most outrageous behavior.
And so, I'm just trying to understand, and say if that's-- If, you know--
If you have specific things that are wrong,
let me know because, at this point, I'm confused.
I was the "boy prince of Hollywood."
I was big. I was bigger than bubble gum.
You think it's made out of brick and rock, but it's not.
It's made out of paper and feathers.
It's an illusion.
Yes?
Alex P. Keaton, Sophomore Hospitality Committee.
Congratulations.
No. Excuse me. Do you mind if I wait around here for a while?
Yeah, I suppose.
That's when Tracy Pollan came into my world.
Having trained in the New York theater,
Tracy brought a grounded quality to the work.
Put that down. Can't you see I'm painting that?
It was in stark contrast to my "just go for the laugh" approach.
What do you call it? "Find the Apple"?
I'd explain the concept of abstract art to you,
but I have a feeling I'd be wasting my time.
You were not the typical casting choice.
You were not perky, you were not a vacuous blonde,
- you weren't a wiseacre kind of-- - Right.
- kind of person. You agree? - I agree.
I was actually very surprised to be cast on the show.
I didn't-- I don't know if I would have cast me on the show.
- Why did they? What was it about you-- - Well, I think that--
that they wanted somebody who was very different from the character of Alex.
And I think that they,
I don't know, just saw something different in me.
One day we broke for lunch.
Women, life, death, art.
Places, please. Places for E. Five, four, three...
After lunch, we picked up where we left off.
Here we go. Ready and action.
I got you something.
You did?
They were having a sale on Picassos.
So, I got you one.
This was very sweet of you.
The moment she said her first line, I detected a hint of garlic
and sensed an opportunity to have a little fun at her expense.
"Whoa, a little scampi for lunch, babe?"
At first, she said nothing.
Her expression didn't even change.
But looking me dead in the eye, she said slowly,
"That was mean and rude, and you're a complete and total fucking asshole."
- Hi, Ellen. Hey, are you ready to go? - Hi. Yeah, let's go.
Okay.
Yeah.
Nobody talked to me that way.
This woman was completely unintimidated by whoever I thought I was.
A pig is a pig no matter how many hit movies he's just had.
So, was she right? Were you a dick?
I was a bit of a dick.
She was joking, but I didn't get it,
because no one would ever joke with me like that.
I was not the butt of any jokes.
And she just went, "I'm gonna poke through that and get--
You're a scared little kid under this shit,
and then I'll just call you out."
In that moment, I fell in love with her.
All right.
Let me just... Right, just--
Right.
All right, okay, not bad.
Just, okay.
All right, okay, yep. All right. Give me--
Okay.
There we go. Gently.
Piece of cake.
Alex, I've never met anybody like you.
I mean, it's like you have a way of seeing right through me.
I'm seeing a part of me that I don't--
I don't even like to admit exists, and that scares me.
Then Tracy got a part in a film I was about to shoot in Manhattan.
We'd hang out on the set together.
So, tell me about your job.
I guess I'm supposed to be pretty impressed, huh?
Don't be.
She had a front-row seat to view the whirlwind my life had become.
Tracy appreciated the toll it was taking.
The mistake would be to lose myself
in the middle of the party that was now my life.
- You have my number, right? - Right.
You should call me.
Yeah, I'd like to.
- I love you. - I love you too.
Well...
we love each other.
We said it, we know it.
I mean, that's all that's important. It doesn't matter what happens now.
What happens now?
- Look at this. - Hold it up.
It's funny you say-- It said, signed to Norm or Fred or something.
Yeah, I got it at the Strand bookstore for a dollar.
Once we got together, I just-- I was the most in love person. I still am.
You need to answer. There's, like, so many texts that you need to answer.
- Yeah. - You need to respond to that.
And you need to resp-- Wait.
It gets better.
This is four texts from Aquinnah that you haven't responded to.
I know, I tried to do it last night.
- So just respond to that... - Yeah.
"Haven't seen you in a few days,
- love you and miss you." - And I can't wait to see you.
- "Can't wait to see you." - Let me see.
Can't wait to see you. The beach awaits you.
Okay.
- "The beach awaits you"? No. - Or something to that effect.
Waiting for you on the beach.
I can't wait to get on the beach with--
can't wait to hang out on the beach with you.
Can't wait to hang out at the beach with you.
Describe this human being to me.
Clarity.
- "Can't wait to see you. Love you." - Love you. That's it.
I get a sense that she's no bullshit.
No. No bullshit.
Who she is is just so locked in 'cause it's so honest.
I could be the king of England and she would be her.
I could be Elvis and she would be her.
You know what, you could put a little bit of this in there.
- Okay, mush it now. I'll hold the bowl. - It's really hard.
- It's kind of hurting my hand. - I can't even hold the bowl.
When I'm with my family, there's no sentimental line with them.
There's no "Poor baby.
I feel your pain, I feel so bad for you.
You're a saint among men, and"--
That would be the worst thing they could do to me.
- Wait. Can I just tell you-- - What?
I was just having a conversation.
If you look through his phone,
it's just, like, a million texts that are never answered.
Yeah, it's just me, like, a bunch of times, like--
- Asking questions? - Every two weeks, I-- No.
I'm just like, "Are you okay? Like, sending so much love. Heart, heart."
- And then no response. And then-- - And no response.
But then about a week after, like,
one of my, like, "Love you so much, hope you're okay."
It's this, like, really nice, but just so random,
he said, "I hope you are happy with all your decisions."
Okay, thanks.
- It's good. Natural. - You're a natural, Pops.
- What are you doing? - You should think about
doing this for a job.
You know, you just turned into a fortune cookie.
When I answer, I go to a simple,
"Hey, I love you too. Thinking about you. How's it going?"
- But you don't say it. - I know, because it comes out--
- it comes out... - You know, also--
And then I go in and I'm, like-- So then I think,
"Well this isn't working out. I'll do the-- push the buttons."
- Then I get some website in China. - Yeah.
Pregnant one month after the wedding,
Tracy found herself with a husband...
Action!
Michael!
...who, when he wasn't away on a job,
was little more than a narcoleptic Lamaze partner.
Michael.
This kid loves these horses.
A vicious ride.
How's the family? Give me the whole report of how being a dad is.
Being a dad is great.
I'm sure that, you know, all the dads out there know it's real cool.
He's-- My son is-- Our son.
Boy, I didn't do half the work.
How are you doing balancing the family and the work?
You're still pretty much a workaholic.
Michael! Michael! Michael!
The rush that was my life then, meant my bride...
was wondering what in the hell she'd gotten herself into.
Tracy, did you miss Michael the last year?
Yeah. It's good to have him home again.
- She's got a tiny version of me at home. - Yeah, I got a miniature version of him...
Inside of a year,
an exquisitely talented, 20-something actress had become a single mother...
It's about being content with who you are and being content with your family
and, you know, loving yourself and loving the people around you.
...while I was still free to work.
Here I was, shooting my fifth film in less than three years.
But it was a sheltered, narrow existence.
He's a chickenshit, man.
Fueled by fear and isolation.
Actors don't become actors because they're brimming with self-confidence.
Hey, good morning, Mr. Eastwood.
An actor's burning ambition is to spend as much time as possible
pretending to be somebody else.
I think you ain't nothing but a gutless yellow turd!
For those of us lucky or unstable enough to become professional performers...
Who the hell do you think you are?
...the uncertainty about who we really are only increases.
And you.
Gnawing at you always...
You I don't know about.
...is the belief that you're a fake. A phony.
I hate your movies.
What is a typical, if there is such a thing,
day in the life of Michael and Tracy and Sam?
I get up and go to work, I come home and everybody is asleep.
That's about it.
Dad hadn't been feeling well for the last month or so.
"My father had been rushed to the hospital.
Dad hadn't been feeling well for the last month or so.
His heart gave out first, then his kidneys began to fail.
I couldn't know that day in 1990 that I was stepping across a threshold."
Sorry.
Stuff like that just hits you like a-- You're going through this stuff and you--
Something like that pops out and you're so, like--
like that's three sentences and, like, 10,000 pounds of stuff.
What was the threshold?
Threshold was adulthood. Like, real shit.
Life.
For Christ's sake, Mike. It's just your freaking finger.
But that was the problem.
It wasn't mine. It was somebody else's.
The most paranoid fantasy I could think of would not have prepared me
for the two words the neurologist bludgeoned me with that day.
Parkinson's disease.
And I said, "You know who you're talking to, right?
You know, I'm, like, not someone who is supposed to get this."
He handed me a pamphlet.
Which one had the incurable brain disease was not clear, they both looked happy.
He said some more words like, "progressive," "degenerative,"
"incurable."
He said, "You lose this game. You don't win this."
I remember standing on the street looking for an answer.
It's just-- I just-- My world blew up.
I should have seen it coming,
the cosmic price I had to pay for all my success.
I told Tracy the news.
"In sickness and in health," I remember her whispering.
Now totally relax with the head.
Okay, that's good. Yeah. Now, look at my finger. Open up.
Look over here.
Yeah. Up. That's good.
Go like this.
You're good. Excellent.
- Actually, that's very strong. Hold on. - I'm a strong man.
- You're a strong man. - Very strong.
So, you were getting dressed, you were in a hurry,
you went smack into the headboard?
- Headboard. Yeah. - Okay.
So, when did you dislocate the shoulder?
- Around the same time? - Around the same time.
It all happened in the-- It was like a festival of self-abuse.
- You can do a tour of my house. - Okay.
- It's almost all in the same spot. - What's it matter?
Okay, so squeeze my hand.
- How does that feel? - Feels all right.
I think we're gonna be fine.
- You're gonna be fine? - Yeah.
They're not gonna have to amputate anything or--
- No. My head. - Okay. Good.
- Your head? - My head, yeah.
Okay.
Tracy's the smartest person I know.
She's learned to deal with a lot of stuff.
How frustrating it must be to have to bear the burden
of something that isn't her burden.
It's my burden, but she shares it with me.
She not only shares it with me, she takes on more than I take on.
So, you take the first round while you're still in bed?
- No, out of bed. - Out of bed. Okay.
- Sometimes Michael likes to hold that off... - Yeah.
...if he's got something that he needs to do.
He thinks if he waits, it's gonna kick in stronger and better.
Everything I go through, she's gone through.
And then I have to try to figure out how to make it work.
Like, I just have to feel it and then-- and live it.
I can walk a little bit though. Like that.
She has to make it work.
- I'm walking, honey. - You are.
- Good job. - I know.
- Is that this way? - Yeah.
Slow down a little. Okay.
I clung to fantasies of escape.
That somehow my diagnosis would turn out to be a mistake.
I was in my late 20s.
How could I possibly have this old person's disease?
Symptoms include muscular rigidity,
slowness and poverty of movements and tremor,
diminished blinking, and reduced spontaneity of facial expression.
I thought my diminished blinking and reduced spontaneity of facial expression
marked a growing comfort in front of the camera.
Less mugging, hamming it up.
No, you weren't getting better. Just sicker.
What advice would you give to someone that has the disease?
The main thing is, is to be truthful, first, with yourself.
Here's Johnny.
With no obvious cue, my left hand would begin shaking uncontrollably.
Now, anyway, let's move. We've got a great show tonight.
Mr. Michael J. Fox is with us.
I had my internist prescribe PD meds.
Sinemet is taken up by the brain and changed into dopamine,
the neurotransmitter that a Parkinson's patient can no longer produce
in sufficient quantities.
Anyway, I'm glad Michael Fox is here tonight.
He's a most-talented young man, and--
Would you welcome Michael J. Fox?
Therapeutic value, even comfort,
none of these was the reason I took these pills.
There was only one reason.
Yeah.
To hide.
I carried the pills around loose and broken
in the pockets of my shirts and trousers.
Like Halloween Smarties.
Parkinsonian tremor occurs when the affected limb is at rest.
I was able to mask the trembling by twiddling an object in my left hand.
Day after day, for hours on end.
Uh-huh. Uh-huh...
Sir, I can't hear you.
There's some kind of a ruckus outside.
Can I call you back?
I never gave a second's thought to sharing my diagnosis with anyone.
I had work to do.
And I intended to pretend as if none of this was actually happening to me.
You can't do this to people.
You can't lie and fake and manipulate. I won't accept that.
Just this once, I'm gonna let you off with a warning.
I like guys that are a little too smart for their own good.
You know, master manipulators who think they're manipulating everybody else,
but are, in a way, kind of manipulating themselves
into a situation they can't control.
I became a virtuoso at manipulating drug intake...
so that I'd peak at exactly the right time and place.
I need more pills.
You wanna take a break?
Well, I mean, I should've stopped ten minutes ago 'cause I need more pills.
- It'll just take two minutes. - Yeah.
You take the pill, then you're waiting. And what does it feel like?
Like waiting-- I always say waiting for a bus. Waiting for the bus.
People will say, "What are you doing?" I say, "I'm waiting for the bus."
And they know what I mean.
Yeah, it's kicking in now. It's nice.
Today's a quick-- Quick kick-in today.
I'm a little-- still a little mumble mouth, but I feel good.
I feel still.
So, you're still waiting for the bus, or you're on the bus?
No, I'm on the bus. I'm putting in-- money in the thing.
It's a great release. It's just, like, you pour into the form that is you.
That you-- It gets filled with you again.
Rolling, rolling.
Speed.
My body ached.
Playback.
I had been contorting it into intensely uncomfortable positions
in order to mask the tremors.
Okay, marker.
Okay, play again.
I see "R-E-C."
Yeah, that's "record."
My appetite was nonexistent.
And I used that excuse to avoid joining my family for dinner.
I thought that by thinking about Parkinson's, I was hastening its arrival.
Instead, I drank to disassociate.
To escape my situation.
Parkinson's, it was hide-the-bottle time.
It was-- Like, I had bottles stashed in the garage,
and I'd open two bottles of wine,
and Tracy would think we just drank one, she didn't know I drank the other one.
And I started to have a margarita before the last take.
Jack Daniel's, rocks, please.
For Love or Money, with Michael J. Fox, starts out great
and then gets all soft. Regretfully though, thumbs-down.
With me, it isn't even a close call. It's definitely thumbs-down.
And then things started to slip.
Life with Mikey doesn't tell much of a story.
I sat there wondering why Michael J. Fox seemed to be without a clue
in a lot of his big scenes.
And here's another movie that loses its way.
Greedy.
Michael J. Fox fell for that old trap.
They wanna play characters who are really likable.
- Why not play nasty? - I agree. Yeah.
Make 'em hateful. People love you when you play hateful characters.
Nicky!
It's crap, Angie. It's crap.
It's another big-budget, big-box-office,
in-one-end, out-the-other, easy-to-flush piece of crap.
I was sullen and angry.
There was one thing in a store. This guy stepped in front of me.
And I said, "Excuse me. What am I, fucking invisible?"
And he goes, "Yeah, you're invisible."
And I grabbed his shirt, and I said, "Fuck you, man.
I'll take you outside and take your head off."
And I said, "I'd love nothing more, today, than to take your head off."
And he just backed off, and they all went white and they walked out.
I said, "I can be that guy."
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?
- So, were you an alcoholic? - Yeah, I was definitely an alcoholic.
But I've gone 30 years without having a drink.
What is the core of that behavior?
The core of that behavior is fear.
There was an urgency, an edge, to that night's partying.
We were on our third pitcher of margaritas by the time the director called "Wrap."
Oh, God.
I saw feet. Tracy's feet.
The feet had on shoes. Shit. What time was it?
I found no expression of rage.
She was meeting my sorry state with indifference.
"Is this what you want?" she said.
"This is what you wanna be?"
Okay, Michael, Tracy, turn your head, please.
I'd never been so frightened in my life.
Tracy. Tracy!
Tracy!
The bathtub became my refuge.
Day after day, for hours at a time.
I just wanted to keep my head below water.
I needed to suffer. I needed to go as low as I could go.
All I could hear was the muted splash of my trembling hand.
But as low as alcohol had brought me,
abstinence would bring me lower.
I could no longer escape myself.
My first few years of sobriety were like a knife fight in a closet.
What's the knife?
The truth.
Truth. I wasn't facing things.
I just wanted to be out of the world.
And I wanted to be in another place, doing another thing.
I ran away and did movies in other parts of the world.
Can't pretend at home that you don't have Parkinson's...
because you're just there with it.
If I'm out in the world, and I'm dealing with other people...
and they don't know I have it, then I don't have it.
But Tracy was really having a hard time
and really was getting to the end of her rope.
Because now we had twins.
Aquinnah and Schuyler.
And I get back to my family.
Sam was happy I was home, but mad at me.
Mom, I'm gonna try...
It's time.
So, what do I do?
- Left turn. - I think it's wobbling.
You got it though. You got it. You own it.
You're on it. You're on it. Go, go, go. Keep going. Go, go, go.
I made up my mind.
I was going home to television.
And I thought, "Yeah, there's nothing like to walk out into a set
and drop a line and have them go fucking crazy."
I just figured, since the Daily News says we were seen eating dinner,
we might as well do it.
You know, the Post says we're sleeping together.
- Did you get the last approval ratings? - Right here, Mike.
The reviews were terrific, and ratings suggested long-term success.
With schedules that meshed perfectly with the rhythms of my family.
Schuyler, walk to me.
And the situation was near perfect.
It's called "Spin." Power of persuasion.
Making people believe what I want them to believe.
It's what I do. It is my gift.
You were amazing.
Yeah, no problem.
It was fun pretending.
All right, the mayor prepared to speak about the strike?
I worked on it all night, Mike.
All right, sir. We're going on earlier than we thought.
The stress with doing a weekly show in front of a studio audience
was exacerbating my symptoms.
The whole of my left arm would be tremoring,
forceful enough to shake my entire body.
It would just twist you.
Then I'd lie on the floor twisting and waiting,
and I'd have an audience outside waiting for me to go do a scene.
I could not only hear their feet shuffling, I could feel them.
Please, join us.
All the while, I was doing the math.
How long since the last pill? How long until it wears off?
If the warning came
when I was in the middle of a four- to five-minute scene,
there wasn't anything I could do to stave off the return of my symptoms.
Fred, Joe, pleasure to see you guys, as always.
I was just thinking...
And still, no one outside of my family knew.
I'm living a lie.
Can't go on with this. This has gotta stop.
You start to feel people looking at you,
staring, judging,
gazing into the very recesses of your soul.
- Yeah, speed. - Roll cameras.
We're ready, Michael.
- Wait, how's that? - Good.
Here we go.
To me, the worst thing is restraint,
and the worst thing is to be confined and not be able to have a way out.
And there were times when I went, "There's no way out of this."
I'd spruce up the walls with fist-sized holes.
You're only as sick as your secrets.
If you feel comfortable, you can let go of the bar.
If you don't, try and keep the pressure off that right hand.
Good. I'm here.
Good. Move your right foot to the right a little bit.
Even more. There you go.
So, what happened?
Let's see if you can stay here.
I fucking hurt myself again.
I tripped over a carpet, and I broke my hand,
and I had pins put in my hand.
But the area around the pins got infected,
and then there was the option of just taking my finger off.
And then I broke my arm.
And the people around me were going, "You gotta be careful."
I said, "This has nothing to do with being careful.
This is just, like-- This happens.
You have Parkinson's, you trip over shit, and you fall down."
Try and lift your chest just a little bit more.
There you go.
- Nice job. Do you-- - Don't put Mikey in a corner.
When I find you talking about the shitty stuff,
I see you sort of get close to it and then dart away.
Careful with this right hand.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
- Good. Have a seat. - I'm okay.
- You want-- You sure? - Yeah.
- This is where I can't use my-- - Right.
See, the core is still there. Those are obliques.
- Yeah. - Right. How you feeling?
Okay.
I've interviewed you for hours and hours and hours.
You've never told me once, "I'm in pain."
- I'm in pain. - You are?
I'm in intense pain.
Five, four, three, two, one. And relax.
- That's making it really hurt. - The shoulder? Here?
Every tremor is like a seismic jolt.
- Do you wanna sit upright? - Yeah, I do.
Do you wanna sit in the chair?
- Anything but what I'm doing right now. - Okay.
But why wouldn't you tell me--
- This is about us talking... - Well, it didn't come up.
...and telling the truth. Why wouldn't you tell me about your pain?
It didn't come up. I'm not gonna lead with it.
Good. Don't plop.
No jolts. Good.
I'm okay.
- I just wanna feel better. - Yeah.
And it seems to me I can see clearly--
more clearly the things I need to do to feel better.
But it's this Michael J. Fox stuff.
People express to me that I make them feel better,
I make them do things they might not otherwise do.
And that's the most powerful thing you could ever feel,
and that's a huge responsibility.
- And I don't want to fuck it up. - Right.
It's okay not to be Michael J. Fox sometimes.
Michael J. Fox kept something very private.
Something about his health.
Now he's gone public with the fact that he has Parkinson's disease.
Michael J. Fox, one of America's best-loved actors
has decided to publicly announce that he's been battling Parkinson's disease.
...shocked the entertainment world when he announced
he has been battling Parkinson's disease.
...and has had it for seven years.
Michael, all this week we have been hearing
that you have this devastating disease,
that it is life-threatening, that you are in the fight for your life.
Do you feel relieved now?
Oh, my God. What have I done?
What is his prognosis?
Within ten years, he will have serious disabilities.
Balance problems with frequent falls.
I think he's got a tough road ahead of him.
Are you at all concerned
that now audiences will look at you differently?
This will be my first time in front of a studio audience
since I disclosed my diagnosis.
My fear was that they would reject me, and that they would not understand it,
that because I was sick, I couldn't be funny.
And I had to hope that they could accept me.
- We got speed. - Roll cameras.
- Mark. - And action.
We meet again, Mr. Bond.
There.
Deal with that, Bobo Fischer.
I knew that.
That's a bold move.
And I got this huge reaction.
You have chosen poorly.
Checkmate.
Like, that's love that can't help itself.
Do you feel like you have a 90-year-old like, dad, or...
'Cause I don't feel like 90 years old, but I-- Well, you sometimes get mad at me.
Like, you guys all say, "Be careful, be careful."
I say that I'm being careful. Like, what, do I set out to not be careful?
Nobody thinks your agenda isn't to be careful.
It's that that maybe isn't--
The first thing--
It's lower on the list of things than it is for us.
So--
So I just have to make sure, you know? And I'd rather--
It's great if you understand what I'm saying,
but I'd rather you don't fall over.
- I'm working on it. - Yeah.
I can look at myself, and I say, "I have Parkinson's."
So, how do I wanna live with that?
But if I never get past the "I have Parkinson's" part,
if I never get past the part where I wake up in the morning
and I go, "Yeah, that's real. That's happening,"
then I can't get past it.
You know, this is the first time that I've had a chance to talk with--
the first time you've been on the show since you had your press conference
- and announced that you... - Right.
...have Parkinson's disease.
- And I just-- I think folks... - Yeah.
...well, you know-- How's it been going since?
What was the reaction of that announcement?
Pretty much the same. It didn't change.
- I still have it. So... - Yeah?
After all those years of hiding my symptoms, I could let it go.
I suffer from a condition, and it makes me do this,
and this, and...
Uh-oh.
If you just look at me long enough, you get used to it.
I realized I didn't have to do anything other than be myself.
Sometimes when I take a little bit too much medication,
I get that kind of swaying thing. I do the kind of Axl Rose thing.
So, if you see that, you know, just kind of hum "Paradise City" in your mind.
I was still me, people recognized. Just me plus Parkinson's.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
- What the hell? - You want?
Did you shake that up on purpose?
Parkinson's.
Some people would view the news of my disease as an ending.
But I was starting to sense that it was really a beginning.
Actor Michael J. Fox testified before Congress,
asking for an increase in research funding for Parkinson's disease.
"I'm here to tell you that administering a successful research program
is not rocket science.
It's mostly common sense and the will to get things done. Thank you."
Good stuff, Michael.
I never actually said this to anybody,
but I always fantasized saying it.
"Yeah, you're bigger than me. You'll beat me up.
But I'll hit you once, and you'll hurt."
And I knew that moment.
Muhammad Ali and Michael J. Fox joining a chorus of voices
saying money is desperately needed.
I wanted to be in the world and not take this and retreat from the world.
It made me realize what I still have to give.
Find it extremely moving-- no pun intended--
to be here today and reach out...
The Fox Foundation has revolutionized scientific philanthropy,
mobilized the Parkinson's community and raised nearly two billion dollars.
I was ten years after my Parkinson's diagnosis when Esmé was born.
Hello, I...
Go see Daddy. Go give Daddy a kiss.
- Look at Dad. - What's Daddy doing?
Look at Daddy, Esmé.
The kids are the best,
because kids will just say, "Will you stop moving around?"
I'm sure.
I say, "I'll give it a shot, hon."
- No. - In love.
- No. They're... - They're flying.
- They're dancing. - Okay, good.
- Would you guys like to switch teams... - But what--
...because we've been winning, or do you wanna keep the same teams?
I like the teams we're on, but...
- I'm tragic at this game. - It's not her fault. It's my fault.
But I was thinking-- Yeah.
Do you see it?
- Oh, yeah. - You got it?
You.
- You got it already? - Yeah.
I just had me.
It was me?
It was me, not you.
He thinks it was "Michael J. Fox."
The thing about motion with me is, I've always been moving,
and maybe that's because I'm small.
I've always been moving, and I always counted on movement
to not only propel me from place to place,
but to express myself as I propelled from place to place, and to be who I am.
But the thing that I learned was that I couldn't be still in my life.
I couldn't be present in my life.
Until I found this thing happened to me
that made me present in every moment of my life,
because it was shaking me awake.
There you go.