Michael J. Fox was 29 years old when a neurologist told him he had Parkinson’s disease, a diagnosis he received in 1991 while filming “Doc Hollywood” in Gainesville, Florida, less than three years after marrying actress Tracy Pollan.
Fox first noticed a twitching pinkie finger and initially dismissed it, but further tests confirmed early-onset Parkinson’s, a disorder that typically affects patients over 60. He recalled going home and telling his wife the news. In the 2023 documentary “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie,” he described her response. “I told Tracy the news. ‘In sickness and in health,’ I remember her whispering,” Fox said. “No one outside of my family knew.”
Fox and Pollan met in 1985 on the set of “Family Ties,” where she played his character’s girlfriend, and they married on July 16, 1988. Fox kept his diagnosis private for seven years before going public in 1998, a period during which he has said he struggled to accept the illness. He later credited Pollan’s steadiness during that time. “One of the things I’ll always love Tracy for is that at that moment, she didn’t blink,” he said during a 2020 appearance on the Today show. Pollan has said that listening to each other and knowing when to give each other space has helped sustain the marriage.
The couple went on to raise four children, and in 2000 Fox established the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, which has since become one of the largest private funders of Parkinson’s research in the world. On July 16, 2026, Fox and Pollan marked 38 years of marriage
