Michael J. Fox is one of America's most beloved actor's. This video looks back at the actor and his rise to fame.

Follow me on Instagram: @dneyts

Michael Andrew Fox was born on June 9, 1961 and is known in the professional world as Michael J Fox. He moved to the USA at the age of 18 and got cast very quickly in the TV movie Letters from Frank. Soon after in 1982 he got the part of Alex P. Keaton in the series Family Ties. The show aired on NBC for 7 seasons from 1982-1989.

During Michael’s time on the show, being young and thirsty for more work, he kept himself busy accepting acting roles in TV movies. In 1984, he got cast in a teen movie entitled Teen Wolf, where he plays the character Scott Howard, a regular kid going to high school who finds out that his family has a secret that makes them turn into werewolves. This is your typical 80s teen flick but with Fox’s acting chops, some pretty memorable music and a fun light hearted script, this 80s comedy turned itself into a cult classic. It actually even spawned a sequel, a cartoon of the same name and more recently even had a TV show on MTV. None of these had FOX in them.

In January of 1985 Michael J. Fox was cast to replace Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly in the movie Back To The Future. This is the movie that transitioned FOX from TV to Hollywood A-lister. Future interview with Director Robert Zemeckis revealed that the originally wanted Fox to play Marty McFly, but Gary David Goldberg, the creator of Family Ties had refused that Zemeckis even approach FOX because they needed FOX’s character of Alex P. Keaton to carry the show. After several week of filming with Eric Stoltz, Zemeckis was unhappy with the somewhat too serious performance by Stoltz so they eventually fired him and replaced the actor with Michael J. Fox. In order to do that Michael had to film Family Ties from 10am to 6pm weekdays and then was rushed to the set of Back To The Future where he would rehearse and shoot his scenes until 2.30 am. This type of schedule lasted for two full months. In interviews of Fox during that time you can see him rushing from one set to the other but he even says it himself, he’s young and being in a show and a movie at the same time was not going to stop him from enjoying and working hard on both projects. And the efforts paid off as Back to the Future spent 8 consecutive weekends as the number-one grossing movie at the US box office in 1985. The film was quickly followed by two more sequels filmed back to back in 1989 and 1990.

The late 80s and early 90s were a part of Michael J. Fox’s life where he was making many movies. His last major film role was in the Frighteners which was released in 1996. This movie is directed by Peter Jackson and tells the story of Frank Bannister portrayed by Fox, who has developed psychic abilities after losing his wife. After acquiring these powers he uses ghosts in order to cheats customers out of money for his “ghost hunting” business. After a mass murderer comes back from Hell, Frank Bannister is prompted to investigate the murders. This movie received critical appraise and is one of Michael’s best roles other than the Back To The Future trilogy.

Around that time Michael made a TV comeback on the show Spin City which ran from 1996 to 2002 which aired on the American TV network ABC. This show is based on a semi-fictional local government running NYC, starring Fox as Mike Flaherty. He plays the role of the deputy major of the City and the series follows the mayor along with its staff on their adventures as the run the city. Mike in the show is very talented at his job, dealing with public relations, politics and the general chaos of the office but doesn’t do too well in his personal life that is most often foreshadowed by his city work. In 1998, Michael J Fox made a public announcement to the cast and crew and told them that he had Parkinson’s disease. During the fourth season he announced his retirement from the show.

In 2013 Fox marked a true comeback to television with a new show entitled “The Michael J. Fox “ show where he plays Mike Henry, a news anchor, for New York’s WNBC who had to give up on his career after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s in order to focus on his health and his family. The show ran a total of 22 episodes.

Even as recently as 2020 he guest starred in 2 episode of the “Good Fight” reprising his character from the Good Wife and plays once again an attorney who suffers from tardive dyskinesia. As you can tell Michael J. Fox may have Parkinson’s but keeps himself healthy and active within the acting community and seems to have a good family life. There are many more things that can be said about Fox’s career including a ton of Voice-over work throughout the years and once again his active efforts to eradicate Parkinson’s disease through his foundation.

#michaeljfox #backtothefuture #martymcfly