.Fox, who has channeled his fame into fighting the degenerative neurological disorder that struck him when he was just 30 years old, has been on the road to promote his latest book "Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist," also the name of this week's TV special on ABC.
The book is an extension of his earlier best-selling memoir "Lucky Man," but the TV show explores more journalistically - in what he calls a "Charles Kuralt-y way" - the theme that has shaped his post-diagnosis life. It took him to Bhutan to learn about Gross National Happiness, to the golf range to discuss positive thinking with Bill Murray and to England, where a scientist confirmed what Fox knew intuitively. He's a pretty cheerful guy, even though he is also, as he calls himself, a "human whirligig."
"She has this test she developed where she identified genetic markers of people who have increased serotonin output and are born optimistic, and she did it on me," Fox, 47, said in a recent phone interview. "There is a second part where you are given a series of images, one horrific and one benign or sentimental, and depending on how you respond, it is further proof. I was attracted to positive images."
Fox came to San Francisco on Friday to talk about his career as an actor, activist and optimist at a sold-out event sponsored by City Arts & Lectures at Herbst Theatre and a later fundraiser to benefit his foundation that's dedicated to seeking a cure for Parkinson's. The appearance at Herbst was a different venue for Fox, who has talked lately with Katie Couric, Jon Stewart and Jimmy Kimmel. This time he took the stage for the first time with the other Michael in his life, his wife Tracy Pollan's brother, the writer Michael Pollan.
The two Michaels, one tall and thin, the other short and thin, are used to talking around the kitchen table. Fox lives in New York with his wife and three kids (oldest son Sam is now at Stanford University) and Pollan is an award-winning writer known for his investigations into agriculture and the American diet and is a professor at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. The two are also a mutual admiration club. Pollan, Fox said, was his writing coach, teaching him the beauty of a good metaphor. "To have someone offer to teach you to write..." said Fox. "One time I was really down. It was all about me and I said, 'Who gives a crap?' and Michael said, "Hey, I write about angiosperm.' "
Fox, Pollan said, has an irrepressible spirit and sense of humor, never seeking the limelight at home, instead taking his place as one more character in the extended family of "extroverts and eccentrics."
"He's just Mike, or Uncle Mike, or as his daughter calls him 'Shaky Dad,' " Pollan said in his introduction, which included a short video with classic clips from "Back to the Future," "Spin City," "Family Ties," "Stuart Little" (in which Fox provided the voice for the animated star rodent) and his most recent acting foray, "Rescue Me," where he plays a character who does not, to put it mildly, share Fox's optimism in the face of challenge.
From the moment Fox walked onstage with the slow characteristic gait of someone with Parkinson's, he drew bursts of applause from the audience. Some were donors to his foundation or also suffer from the disease, but all were clearly fans.
Fox looked boyish in a black blazer and jeans. His symptoms, the bobbing and weaving that are only partially controlled by medication, were easy to forget as he began talking. Born in Canada, Fox started acting at 15, then dropped out of high school and moved to the United States at 18. He had early huge hits - "Family Ties," where he met his co-starring wife, and Steven Spielberg's "Back to the Future" movies.
First symptom
In 1990, he had his first symptom, a twitchy pinky finger. Diagnosed a year later, he kept the illness secret for seven years, and continued his run on the series "Spin City." Initially, he said, he worked more and drank more. He tried in vain to hide symptoms until, he said, logistics instead of creativity consumed most of his effort. Eventually, he quit drinking and realized he would have to go public and alter his career.
Leaving acting work - at least as his mainstay - was surprisingly easy, he said. He recalled an epiphany during a trip to Hawaii's Turtle Bay, where he jumped in the water to see a rare sea turtle swimming near the reef and stayed out long after the rest of his family went back to shore. He noticed an injury on the turtle's flipper as it made its way around the reef and was struck, he said, by its "survivorhood."
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