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Michael J. Fox is looking back on the year that made him a star.
In his new memoir, “Future Boy,” the 64-year-old actor reflected on what it was like filming two of his most well-known projects at the same time in 1985 — while also looking back on another iconic film he starred in that year, “Teen Wolf.”
While the film ended up being a success, Fox wrote that he felt “like a whore” during a specific day on set.
“It was already obvious to me that ‘Teen Wolf,’ filmed a few months prior, was not my magnum opus,” Fox wrote in the memoir. “One day on the set of that film, the prop guy made me take a few photos holding a chocolate bar so they could show the confectioner who supplied the candy that we had actually used their product in the movie. Covered in yak hair, I told him that I felt like a whore doing this. The prop guy said, ‘Well, you are a whore.'”
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Michael J. Fox said he felt “like a whore” during a specific shoot on the set of “Teen Wolf” in 1985. (©MGM/courtesy Everett Collection; Sven Hoppe/picture alliance via Getty Images)
While Fox had already made his mark in Hollywood playing Alex Keaton on “Family Ties,” he reached new levels of fame when he starred in “Back to the Future.” A month later, “Teen Wolf” hit theaters. While it wasn’t the juggernaut, “Back to the Future” was, it managed to make $80 million with only a $4 million budget.
When comparing his experience on the two films, Fox explained the “whore” comment shows the “especially stark [comparison] to the crew surrounding me on ‘Back to the Future.'” As to why he chose to take the role to begin with, Fox wrote his agents “seized the moment and sent me the script,” adding that “the five-week shoot could easily slide into the production hiatus at ‘Family Ties.'”
Michael J. Fox filming “Teen Wolf” in 1985. (©MGM/courtesy Everett Collection)
Fox continued to find success, starring in the hit sitcom “Spin City” for five seasons from 1996 to 2001. During that time, he went public with his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis — first made in 1991, when he was 29.
“Covered in yak hair, I told him that I felt like a whore doing this. The prop guy said, ‘Well, you are a whore.'”
Parkinson’s disease is a degenerative brain disorder that affects the nervous system and mobility, according to the Mayo Clinic. Throughout much of his prolific acting career, Fox has had to find ways to work around his symptoms. However, in his first acting role in five years, he doesn’t have to worry about his disease.
Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s when he was 29 years old. (Terry Wyatt)
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“It was the first time ever I get to show up on-set, and I didn’t have to worry about am I too tired or coughing or anything,” he told People. “I just do it. It was really good, because for the moments when I say, ‘I’m not going to be able to do this,’ then I say, ‘Well, I’ll just deal with how I can’t do it in the scene.’ And you get through it.”
Fox returns to acting in season three of the hit Apple TV+ comedy “Shrinking,” alongside Jason Segel and Harrison Ford. Ford’s character is a therapist with Parkinson’s.
When he learned about Ford’s character’s diagnosis, Fox said he called the show’s co-creator, Bill Lawrence, and joked, “You did a show about Parkinson’s, and you didn’t call me?” That led to his spot on the show.
In an October interview with The Times, Fox said “there’s no timeline, there’s no series of stages that you go through” with Parkinson’s, unlike diseases that follow more defined progressions.
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Fox said he doesn’t want a dramatic death. (Mike Coppola/Getty Images)
“There are not many people who have had Parkinson’s for 35 years,” Fox said. “I’d like to just not wake up one day. That’d be really cool. I don’t want it to be dramatic. I don’t want to trip over furniture, smash my head.”
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