Michael J. Fox Death, Obituary – Michael J. Fox had a successful and early career, scoring more hits in his 20s than most stars do in their entire career. It appeared the actor would have his pick of films in Hollywood after securing his memorable part as Marty McFly in Back to the Future and getting his big break on the television program Family Ties. However, the actor discovered he had Parkinson’s disease at the age of 29, and physicians predicted that he would only have ten more years to work in acting. He continued acting successfully despite their pessimistic forecast until his retirement in 2020, all the while contributing to the funding of millions for Parkinson’s research.
In a recent interview with comedian Mike Birbiglia, Fox opened up about never-before-shared aspects of his condition, including one heartbreaking symptom he has that’s common among Parkinson’s patients. Read on for his most recent update.
Fox has been upfront about his Parkinson’s symptoms, which include tremors, trouble speaking, and muscle rigidity, ever since going public with his ailment in 1998, seven years after his diagnosis. He added another unexpected ailment to that list when conversing with Birbiglia: total loss of his sense of smell. He explains that even though he no longer has this particular sense, he still likes to think back on the odors from his early years. “I can still smell the pine in this apartment building I lived in right after Christmas.
Because you couldn’t put the trees on the road, everyone would put them out there for New Year’s before they were taken up. It also had balconies and fire escapes. And the entire area had a piney fragrance. Fox recalled, “It smelled like a pine forest. Although tremor is one of the hallmarks of Parkinson’s, few are aware that olfactory changes are even more typical. A 2011 study that was published in the journal Parkinson’s Disease indicated that over 96 percent of Parkinson’s patients report significant changes to their sense of smell. While tremor occurs in around 70 percent of people with neurodegenerative disease. Sometimes, this starts before other symptoms do, sometimes years or even decades before.
In recent years, Fox developed another symptom of Parkinson’s, which he says impacted his decision to step away from acting: he had difficulty memorizing scripts. “I just had this blank, I couldn’t remember the lines,” he recalled of a challenging moment on the set of Good Fight, a spinoff of Good Wife. In his early days of acting, Fox says he could recite pages of dialogue under tremendous studio pressure to get the shot—” not a trickle of sweat on my brow,” he recalled. Still, struggling to find the words for a few lines of dialogue came as a shock, but not a cause for panic. “I didn’t freak out. I just went, “Well that’s that. Moving on. A key element of this process is memorizing lines, and I can’t do it,” he said. “So, I go to the beach.” Full Story
Tributes to Michael J Fox
As a result of the announcement of Michael J Fox’s passing being made public, friends, family, and other people close to Michael J Fox are going through a period of intense grief. I don’t believe that life should be viewed as something terrifying. In my opinion, it’s very similar to getting a soothing massage after a long day at the office. In the end, you will have to pick yourself up and head back to work at some point. To sum it all up, that pretty much sums up life, death, and the economy.
