Scientists still aren’t sure what causes Parkinson’s. But four people on the set of Leo and Me, Michael J. Fox’s first television series, developed the progressive, incurable disease. The fifth person, of course, was Fox himself, an amiable comic actor who starred in the comedy Family Ties and the Back to the Future movies before he got the illness, around 1990. (Leo and Me aired in 1981.)
Fox won’t speculate about why his coworkers on Leo and Me became ill, though researchers have focused on environmental hazards as a possible cause for Parkinson’s. (They are also looking at a genetic factor.) Speaking to CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Fox said, “I am not concerned about a few people. I am focused on everyone who has the disease.” His organization, the Michael J. Fox Foundation, has raised more than $200 million to fund efforts toward finding a cure.
Fox, 49, has shown a lot of courage in living for two decades with an illness that is painfully difficult and frightening. But he’s had the support of Tracy Pollan, his wife of 22 years, and their four kids. Fox told Gupta that his medicine enables him to do things he’s always done, like golfing and playing the guitar.
But in the interview, Fox didn’t pretend that the adjustment to his illness was easy at first. “About two years after my diagnosis,” he said, “I just accepted it. My happiness was in direct proportion to my acceptance. The only thing I don’t have a choice about is whether I have Parkinson’s. Everything else is my choice.
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