Michael J. Fox will receive the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award at the 78th Emmy Awards on Sept. 14, with his wife of 38 years, Tracy Pollan, by his side just as she has been since the two met on the set of NBC's "Family Ties" more than four decades ago.
Fox played Alex P. Keaton on the sitcom, and Pollan was cast as Ellen Reed, a dancer who became Alex's girlfriend. "Alex and Ellen have an old-fashioned relationship," Pollan told People in 1986, the same year Fox won the first of three consecutive Emmys for outstanding lead actor in a comedy series. "It's unjaded and optimistic with the sweetness of a first love."
A Slow-Burning Romance
Alex and Ellen didn't last on screen, but off screen Fox and Pollan took their time. "I always thought [Tracy] was cool," Fox later told People, "but it was like a couple of married people who worked together and liked each other." At the time Fox, fresh off the success of 1985's "Back to the Future," was dating "Facts of Life" actress Nancy McKeon, while Pollan was five years into a relationship with Kevin Bacon, with whom she shared a Manhattan apartment and a Connecticut farmhouse. "I'm gushingly in love," she told People in 1986, though she added that marriage still felt like "such a grown-up thing."
Their romance finally caught fire on the set of the 1988 film "Bright Lights, Big City," even as tabloids speculated about Fox and his "Family Ties" co-star Courteney Cox. "People always want to read there's romance when it's just two actors having a good time working with each other," Fox told People in December 1987. He proposed on Dec. 26, 1987, seven months after they began dating, and the two married on July 16, 1988, at the West Mountain Inn in Arlington, Vermont, a wedding paparazzi tracked down by helicopter.
Parenthood and a Life-Changing Diagnosis
The couple's son, Sam Michael Fox, was born May 30, 1989, followed by twin daughters Aquinnah Kathleen Fox and Schuyler Phyllis Fox on Feb. 15, 1995, and daughter Esmé Annabelle Fox on Nov. 3, 2001.
In 1991, at age 29, Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, an incurable condition that gradually affects motor function. "I thought I'd hurt my shoulder doing some stunt because I had a twitch in my pinkie," he recalled on "The Late Show With David Letterman" in 2015. "And the doctor said, 'You have Parkinson's disease.' He said, 'The good news is that you have 10 years of work left.'"
Fox kept the diagnosis private for years, continuing to work while privately sinking into depression and heavy drinking. "Now I was drinking alone and to just not be [present]. Every day," he told "The Howard Stern Show" in 2013. He eventually entered therapy, calling the period beforehand "a knife fight in a closet." Once he learned to take life "one day at a time," he said, "my marriage got great, and my career..."
Fox returned to television in 1996 on ABC's "Spin City" and continued winning lead actor Emmys, including in 2000 after he left the show. He publicly revealed his Parkinson's diagnosis in 1998, after undergoing brain surgery to ease his tremors, becoming one of the disease's most visible advocates. The Michael J. Fox Foundation, which he launched in 2000, has since raised more than $3 billion for Parkinson's research.
"We're Just in It" Together
Pollan told Oprah Winfrey that Fox's diagnosis "instantaneously" cured her own hypochondria, though she acknowledged an adjustment period. "A lot of my adjustment has been dictated by Michael's point of view," she said. "He's so relaxed and so accepting of where he is, and that makes it easier for me, the kids, and everyone around him." Fox told Winfrey he had described Parkinson's as "the gift that keeps on taking," adding, "I discovered that I wasn't me minus Parkinson's. I was me plus it."
Speaking to People in 2015 at the foundation's annual "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Cure Parkinson's" benefit, Pollan described how she and Fox work through conflict: "A lot of times he'll just say to me, 'You know who I am, would I ever say anything to try to hurt your feelings? Just give me the benefit of the doubt.'" She called Fox "an amazing father" and "one of the smartest people I know...and he's pretty cute still!"
38 Years and Counting
Fox has said he and Pollan made a point of taking an annual trip together and largely reserved gift-giving for birthdays and Christmas, though he admitted to Good Housekeeping in 2011 that he occasionally slipped up on Valentine's Day. He said the couple deliberately had their twins induced on Feb. 15 rather than Feb. 14 so the family would never lose Valentine's Day to a birthday celebration.
For their 35th anniversary in 2023, Fox shared photos on Instagram, writing, "35 years of laughter, living, listening and loving you @tracy.pollan. Thank you for it all." A year later, Pollan posted a throwback picture from Martha's Vineyard alongside a recent one: "Same spot, different year! Happy anniversary my love, we haven't changed a bit...I love you!" This year, marking 38 years, Fox wrote simply, "Every day is a holiday, and anniversaries are even better. Love you so."
Fox, now known for his role on "Shrinking," will accept the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award at the 78th Emmy Awards, airing Sept. 14 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on NBC and streaming on Peacock.
