The Life of Michael J. Fox

On June 9^th, 1961, in the Canadian Province of Alberta, Sergeant William Fox of the Canadian Army Signal Corps and his wife Phyllis had a son, the fourth of five children. Michael Andrew Fox (He added the J when the Screen Writers Guild already had a Michael Fox on their books as they don't accept multiple actors with the same name, and sometimes jokes that it stands for Jenius or Jenuine) spent his childhood living at various military bases until his fathers retirement from the Army.

As a teenager Michael started showing his talents to the world in the forms of music (He played guitair in a band named Helix) and acting, in plays and television commercials, eventually staring in the CBC series Leo & Me. At 18, he went to Hollywood, and after three years without success, finally got his big break, starring as Alex P. Keaton, in Family Ties. During the third season of the show Fox worked overtime, filming Family Ties by day and a movie, Back To The Future, by night. The movie was a complete success, as the show continued to be.

The following year, Michael met a woman on the set of Family Ties, Tracy Pollan, an actress playing his character's girlfriend, who would later become his real life wife. After seven years Family Ties finished it's run. In 1989, Back To The Future Part II was released, and was another success for Michael, as was Part III the following year. When filming Doc Hollywood Michael was troubled by an uncontrolable non-stop twitching in his left-hand pinky finger. After much testing, it was concluded by doctors that Michael had young onset Parkinson's Disease, a fact that was to remain unknown to the public until 1998.

In 1996, after several years of only appearing in movies, Michael made his triumphant return to the small screen, starring in the show Spin City, as New York City's Deputy Mayor Mike Flaherty. He left the show after four seasons in 2000, although it continued for another two seasons with Charlie Sheen in the starring role, before ending in 2002. Meanwhile, Michael set up The Michael J. Fox Foundation For Parkinson's Research, and since then most of his work has been adovating or raising money for researches (such as Stem Cell) towards finding a cure for Parkinson's, or just making life better for people with P.D, and other neurological disorders.

In the time since leaving Spin City, in addition to this, Michael has appeared in shows such as Scrubs and Rescue Me. He has also written two books in this time, Lucky Man and Always Looking Up. In 2009, ABC aired his documentuary Michael J.Fox: Adventures Of An Incurable Optimist. At the time of writing, Michael lives in New York City with his wife Tracy, and their four children, Sam, twins Aquinnah and Schuyler, and Esme.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_J._Fox
Michael J. Fox: Lucky Man - A Memoir (Book).