Lucky Man by
Michael J. Fox

Reviewed by Elaine Williams
[e-book]

When Michael J. Fox dropped out of high school to pursue an acting career in Hollywood, his teachers told him. "You're not going to be cute forever." Fox proves them wrong in this candid and inspiring autobiography - he is just as cure now as he was in the 1980s. Best known for his roles as Alex P. Keaton in Family Ties. Marty McFly in Back to the Future and its sequels, and Michael Flaherty in Spin City (from which he recently retired'), the 40-year-old Canadian actor reviews his life as a confident boy who, ironically, lost that confidence when he became a star. The good news is that he gained it all back as inner strength. And if his cuteness sometime irritated his coworkers and family once he became famous, he redeems himself by honestly sharing with us those moments when they made him eat humble pie. For instance, his first Emmy was placed in his parents' home, not in a prominent place, but among his siblings' bowling and skating trophies.

I was a teenaged girl when Michael J. Fox became a household.name, and like many other girls, I fell for him. This affinity lasted through his movie Doc Hollywood, after which I forgot about him in the "busy-ness" of life. It was during that same year of Doc Hollywood (1991) that Fox began to seriously consider his own future. He was diagnosed with Young Onset Parkinson's disease at that time, and began a long struggle with every facet of his life: his career, which would be significantly shorted as the disease progressed: his marriage, which had become distant as he refused to share his inner feelings with wife Tracy Pollan; and his excessive drinking, to which Fox refers to his other "career." His fear that fame was not going to last. that the other shoe would drop any time, was a major issue even before Parkinson's manifested itself. Fox describes several moments of truth in his life, and so many of his fans will relate to these.

One of the risks of reading a biography or autobiography is that you may admire the person much less after you find out what he is really like. This doesn't happen with Fox, and not just because he is cute and funny (Quote: "I had a real job once.") It's because he sees his celebrity now as a currency to be spent in finding and funding the best in Parkinson's disease research. It's because he treasures his family (his wife, son and twin daughters) far above fame. As the book's title attests. Fox counts himself a lucky man because Parkinson's finally gave the deeper meaning to his life that he had been seeking. However, if you don't read this book for any other reason, read it to find out what his middle initial stands for. The answer is just so ... well ... cute. For more information about the Michael J. Fox Foundation, try the website at <http://www.michaeljfox.org/>.

[e-book]

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