Lucky Man

by Michael J. Fox

  Brigette may have had a doctor in the family but, in Tracy, I had the next best thing: a hypochondriac. By that I don't mean she's an obsessive-compulsive, doom-and-gloom, stay-in-bed-with-the-covers-pulled-over-her-head neurotic who spends her spare time taking her own blood pressure. She's not crazy, just a little sensitive to the subtlest fluctuation in her health, not to mention the health of all those around her. As long as I've known her, she's owned the latest edition of the Columbia School of Medicine Encyclopedia of Health, and has an uncanny knack for matching symptoms with life-threatening diseases. While I was in Florida, Tracy had remained in Manhattan with Sam. I reached her by telephone that morning at the gym. Tracy was just about to start her workout, but she encouraged me to take my time and explain in complete detail exactly what I was experiencing. Without sounding at all patronizing, she promised me that what I was describing didn't fit the profile of any disease, affliction, or injury that she was familiar with. I was relieved to hear this, and clung to her assurance that the episode would almost certainly pass and be forgotten by the end of the day. Had I ever been this patient and empathetic with her? So many times I'd dismissed her fears: “That's a freckle, Tracy, not a malignant melanoma.” “No, you're not going deaf, it's called swimmer's ear.” I felt guilty, but I felt better. She was right. This was nothing. It would blow over. I was fine. We traded “I love you and miss you's,” but just as I was about to hang up, as an afterthought she quickly added, “You know, Brigette's brother is a brain surgeon. Why don't you give him a call just for the hell of it?”

  Shit.

  Ten minutes after I'd spoken to Tracy, Brigette was in my room with her brother on the line. “Just a second, Phillip, here he is.” Brigette handed me the phone. And so I went through the whole pinkie deal one more time. Brigette's brother, Dr. Phillip Roux-Lough, very serious, very professional, came up with a host of possible explanations, each one more horrific than the last. I was amazed to learn that people my age actually had strokes and aneurysms—good God. The words brain tumor also surfaced, but this was not an area I wanted to explore too deeply. He asked if I'd had any recent episodes of physical trauma. With so many to choose from, I ran through a few of my greatest hits, so to speak, and one incident in particular intrigued him.

  While making Back to the Future, Part III in the winter of 1989, I had actually hanged myself during a botched film stunt. Marty McFly, stranded in 1885, finds himself at the mercy of a lynch mob. At the last moment before they string him up, he manages to insert his left hand between the rope and his neck. This shot was not designed to include my whole body, so for the first couple of takes, I stood on a small wooden box. While this was technically a stunt, it was also my close-up, so Charlie was on the sidelines. No matter how I shifted my weight, the swinging effect was not realistic, so I offered to try it without the support of the box. This worked well for the next couple of takes, but on the third I miscalculated the positioning of my hand. Noose around my neck, dangling from the gallows pole, my carotid artery was blocked, causing me briefly to pass out. I swung, unconscious, at the end of the rope for several seconds before Bob Zemeckis, fan of mine though he was, realized even I wasn't that good an actor.

  Dr. Lough suspected a connection between the events of that morning in Gainesville and the unintended drama on a film set ten months or so before. He suggested I consult a local neurologist.

  As it happens, the University of Florida in Gainesville is home to a world-renowned neurology department. That afternoon, the Doc Hollywood producers arranged for the doctor in charge to give me a checkup. I was greeted at the front door by the neurologist, a few of his associates, and perhaps a favored student or two, as though I was some sort of visiting dignitary. Didn't they know that this was a patient visit, not some sort of celebrity meet-and-greet?

  That question was answered when I was shown into an examination room, handed a robe, and instructed to strip down to my underwear. For the next twenty minutes or so I was put through what resembled a battery of highway patrol sobriety tests: walking a straight line one foot in front of the other, extending my arms and bringing each forefinger to the tip of my nose, closing my eyes and walking forward, backward, sideways, and hopping up and down on each foot. The exercises most relevant to my particular complaint involved an intense exploration of the wonders of the opposable thumb. The doctor asked me to touch the tip of each finger to the tip of my thumb, one after the other, again and again, each time more rapidly than the last. I was quickly reminded of why humans wear the pants in the primate family. I could do whatever they asked, which was reassuring. What was even more reassuring was the attitude of the doctors after observing me. They didn't seem at all worried. After I had dressed and taken a seat in the doctor's office, he informed me that not only was I fine, but that he wished he had videotaped my examination for his students as an example of what a completely normal and healthy neurological specimen looked like. In his opinion, the source of the finger spasms was most likely a minor injury to my ulna. “You mean my funny bone?” With a confirming nod, the doc joked that wasn't it appropriate, given what I did for a living. We had a nice little chuckle over that one.

  So did these doctors screw up? I honestly don't think so. Neurological disorders like mine are so rare in people my age that the symptoms would have to be blatant before any responsible physician could confirm so serious a diagnosis. In retrospect, though, I like to joke that what else should I have expected from the University of Florida, home of the football Gators, than for the team doctor to tell the quarterback he was okay to go back into the game?

  So back into the game I went. I finished filming Doc Hollywood in February 1991. For the final two months, production had moved from Florida to Los Angeles. Once again, ever restless, always on the search for my next opportunity, I launched myself headlong into another job. Bob Zemeckis was producing Tales from the Crypt, an anthology series for HBO based on the gruesome blood-soaked EC comic books of the same name, and he'd offered me an episode to direct. Eager to develop my directing skills as a backup to my acting career, I threw myself into the project with high enthusiasm—but flagging energy.

  The twitching in my pinkie persisted, but now my ring and middle finger occasionally joined in on the act. I was experiencing weakness in my left hand, stiffness in my shoulder, and achiness in the muscles on the left side of my chest. I was convinced now that my problem was physiological and not neurological, probably related to the Back to the Future hanging. I assumed it was something I could take care of with physical therapy, and that could wait until after I finished working. As a matter of fact, I decided it might as well wait until after my summer vacation. Maybe it was out of embarrassment for being so uncharacteristically panicked in the first place, but I retreated into my inherited Anglo-Irish predisposition toward stoicism. Finishing up my directing chores on Crypt, I resolved not to accept any film offers until after a good long break with my family. I owed that much to Tracy and to Sam. Hell, I owed that much to myself.

  I was in New York when The Hard Way opened in March of 1991. I received some of the better reviews of my career, but for the most part, the film was met with critical scorn and audience indifference; in plain terms it was a very expensive, very damaging bomb. Universal had been making overtures about a multi-picture long-term contract; now they were having second thoughts, though they assured my agent that this was not the case. We both knew better. The executives at Universal were going to sit back and watch to see if Warner Brothers had the same problem with Doc Hollywood before they bet any more money on my career. Everything was riding on Doc Hollywood. Or more precisely, the opening weekend of Doc Hollywood.

  An actor's bankability is determined by his power to draw an audience to those all-important first three days of a film's release. After all, attracting an audience to sample a picture is the reason the studios pay all that money for a big-name star. The pressure to ensure that the film continues to do strong business (has “legs,” in industry parlan
ce) then shifts to the marketing and publicity departments and away from the actor. All I needed was three days of solid box office, and I was out from under the failure of The Hard Way.

  BEFORE THE FALL

  Martha's Vineyard—August 1991

  Most people who consider themselves lucky are also plagued by superstition, and I had developed a ritual around the opening of any movie I appeared in. I was in London during the openings of Back to the Future and Teen Wolf, both of which had huge first weekend grosses. Ever since, I had made an effort to be, if not out of the country, then at least out of any major city when my movies hit the theaters. The Hard Way had been the exception—and look how that had turned out.

  I wasn't going to make the same mistake with Doc Hollywood. Obviously there was no rational point to this ritual, but I was looking for every possible edge. There was cause for worry. Audience tracking—exit polling of moviegoers to assess their likelihood of electing to see a new film—indicated that not many were likely to go see Doc Hollywood. There's always a target number for the gross ticket sales a new movie should meet or surpass on its first weekend: a figure based on a variety of factors, including the number of screens on which it is shown. In 1991, $6 million was the consensus number below which we'd be in trouble. It didn't help that we were an August release, since late summer is the dumping ground for a less-than-promising product. If ever there was a time to get the hell out of town, this was it.

  Tracy, Sam, and I had plans to spend the month of August at her parents’ place on Martha's Vineyard. On the Thursday before Friday's release, I flew there myself; my family would join me on Saturday. Tracy and I agreed that it would be a lot easier for me to sweat out opening night solo.

  Coincidentally, and unfortunately for him, my agent Peter Benedek was also vacationing on Martha's Vineyard with his family. They had rented an elegant Victorian house in Edgartown with a view looking across the bay toward Chappaquiddick, site of Teddy Kennedy's date with infamy. Pete extended a gracious but ill-advised invitation for me to join his family and friends for dinner that Friday night. On edge and looking forward to nothing less than the complete collapse of my career, I made a poor dinner guest, to put it mildly. I skipped the appetizers and went straight from an extended cocktail hour into several bottles of wine for dinner. By the time the entrée was served, I was completely blotto. It wasn't a fun evening.

  Traditionally a charming, mushy kind of drunk (I'm told), my fear and anxiety mixed with all that alcohol made me belligerent. I was staggered not only by the effect of the drinks, but by the reality that at that very moment, in cineplexes across the country, my fate was being decided by strangers. Moviegoers were either buying or not buying a ticket for my film—and my gut told me it was the latter. Unable to vent my spleen on each one of the non–ticket-buyers, I turned on my agent.

  “You're going to fucking call me tomorrow morning, Pete, and you know what you're gonna fucking say? You're gonna fucking say, ‘I'm fucking sorry, man.’ And then what? I'll tell you what. I fucking quit. I can't take this shit anymore.” Pete, one of the gentlest, sweetest, kindest people in the business, never mind agent-ry, really had no counter. He knew I was right, although he probably doubted the sincerity of my threats to retire. He promised me that whatever happened, we'd ride it out. And then he offered me a ride home. Fortunately the way home didn't pass over the Chappaquiddick bridge.

  When the phone rang at about 9:00 the next morning, I let it go for a while. Hung over, I was worried that the news I might be about to hear would make me puke my guts out. After a half-dozen rings, I picked up the phone without saying anything. Pete broke the silence. “Mike? . . .” he said tentatively. I winced. His tone brightened. “We did it, man. We opened this motherfucker! They think it's going to do eight to nine for the weekend. It's killing in the secondary markets—Saint Louis, Chicago, Atlanta.” I thanked him and apologized profusely for my behavior the night before. I hung up the phone and smiled. Doc Hollywood was a hit. Not a gigantic hit, not a blockbuster, but an undeniable, guaranteed-to-make-a-profit box office success. I was still in showbiz—had earned a couple more at-bats. My hangover was gone.

  It seems to me that the quality of a moment in time is not always a reflection of the moment in and of itself—what happens before and what happens after are often what give it its savor. Having forestalled a professional crisis, that monkey was, at least for now, off my back—and with no way of anticipating the gorilla that was waiting for me in the fall, the rest of that summer was a parenthesis of bliss.

  The Pollans’ Vineyard home, a tiny but sweet reconfigured fishing shack nestled in the dunes overlooking Menemsha Sound, was for Tracy, Sam, and me as cozy as a hug. Our days were spent at the beach or riding our bikes along Lobsterville Road. Two-year-old Sam was in his glory. A curious tidepool detective, he'd spend hours chasing horseshoe crabs along the muddy banks of Menemsha Pond. One day Tracy and I introduced him to The Flying Horses, an antique carousel in Oak Bluffs complete with calliope music and brass rings. We followed that up by treating him to a dish of ice cream from Mad Martha's, which he greedily consumed. We plugged some quarters into the ice cream parlor's fifties-style jukebox, and fueled by the sugar, he threw himself into a dance of toddler joy.

  We laughed about it all the way home and somehow even managed to giggle, if somewhat guiltily, when he threw up the sticky-pink ice cream all over his crib.

  Tracy and I sipped wine on the veranda and watched the sun set each night. On mornings when Sam was restless and I wanted Tracy to enjoy the rare luxury of sleeping late, I'd scoop him up and, sitting on the porch, we'd watch that same sun rise up to greet another perfect summer day. I remember the warm paternal satisfaction I'd felt pointing out to Sam the various wonders of a Vineyard morning. There was an osprey, for example, who would glide back and forth across the surface of the sound in competition with the many anglers who rose early to line the shore and fish for stripers.

  Energized by the success of the movie, which continued to play strongly through the rest of the summer, I resolved to get myself in shape—cut back on the beers, lose a few pounds. There's no more beautiful place to jog than Martha's Vineyard, particularly along the winding beach roads of Gay Head. I designed my runs so that in the beginning the ocean breezes would cool me down, and on the second half, gently push me toward home. Near the end of our stay, I decided to go for it and do the entire five-mile loop along Moshup Trail. It was late afternoon on a particularly gorgeous day. A cyclist passed by and offered me a friendly tip of his bike helmet; I was pretty sure it was James Taylor, and I considered that a good sign.

  After a strong start, I began to falter in the home stretch. It was taking longer than I'd expected, but I wasn't worried, just spent. About a half mile from the turn down the dirt driveway to the house, I saw Tracy driving toward me. She pulled over, got out of the car, and waved me to stop. She appeared slightly stricken. “Are you okay?” she asked. I assured her that I was, but that I may have overestimated my stamina; after all, I was almost thirty now. This was meant as a joke, but it did little to alter the expression on her face.

  “You look like hell,” she said. “The left side of your body is barely moving. Your arm isn't swinging at all. I don't think you should run anymore until you get a chance to see a doctor. I think you should make an appointment as soon as we get back to the city.”

  I promised that I would. Tracy gave me a ride the rest of the way home. The Columbia School of Medicine Encyclopedia of Health must weigh about five pounds; far too heavy to pack on vacations. Otherwise, it occurred to me as I took my shower, Tracy would be out there now, furiously flipping through pages.

  New York City—Late Summer 1991

  Upon returning to New York, I dutifully tracked down a respected sports medicine doctor and made an appointment. He was very thorough, and before prescribing a course of physical therapy to treat what I now assumed was extensive muscle and ligament damage from the long-ago date with the hangman, he ord
ered a series of X rays. The bones and musculature of my neck, shoulder, hand, arm, hip, and leg, the entire left hemisphere of my body, were photographed and examined. As a precaution, they also did a brain scan to rule out the possibility of stroke or a tumor. A routine formality, I reassured myself as I lay, my head encased in the strange tube that is the MRI machine, and listened for twenty minutes to its bizarre cacophony of knocks and pings.

  The doctor assigned a physical therapist to go to work on my neck and shoulder, with attention also paid to the thoracic muscles on the left side of my chest. Finally I was taking care of this situation. While I resolved to be patient throughout the course of my treatment, I was eager to put this health crap behind me and get on with my now-resurgent career, with a renewed focus and commitment to my family. Those precious few weeks on the Vineyard had done much to reinforce how important Tracy and Sam were to me.

  At the end of my second treatment, however, the doctor took me aside, handed me the business card of a neurologist friend of his, and strongly recommended that I see him as soon as possible. I'd already told him about the neurologist in Gainesville, and since we knew that there was no evidence of stroke or tumor, I didn't see the point. “I really think you should see him,” he persisted. When I mentioned this later to Tracy, she was adamant that I make the appointment. Unbeknownst to me, the doctor had called her separately and put it very succinctly: “Just make sure he goes.”

  TWO WORDS

  New York City—September 1991

  Contrary to the happy-go-lucky image I cultivated, there were things that worried me more than I'd let on. My health, however, had never been one of them. But even if it had been, the most paranoid, hypochondriacal fantasy I could think of would not have prepared me for the two words the neurologist bludgeoned me with that day: Parkinson's disease.

  Recollecting my exact response to this pronouncement is difficult; there are gaps. Dramatically, this scene would be served by the certainty that I broke down, kicked furniture, screamed “FUCK!,” cursed God, or challenged this doctor, not much older than I was, maybe told him he was full of shit—and didn't he know who he was talking to? I might have charmed him—god knows I'd charmed my way out of some deep holes before. “Look . . .” one plausible in-character response might've been, “you've obviously screwed up here. But you've probably read in People magazine that I'm one of the nicer guys in showbiz, so I'm going to let this slide. Don't worry . . . this stays between us.”