Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan: the real story Michael Andrew Fox was born June 9, 1961, in Edmonton, Alberta. He added the “J.” because another actor already had the name Michael Fox. He was short, restless, and not built for hockey, so he found acting. By his mid-20s he was Alex P. Keaton on Family Ties and Marty McFly in Back to the Future. Tracy Pollan played his girlfriend Ellen on Family Ties. They did not start dating on that set. They found each other later, married on July 16, 1988, in Arlington, Vermont, and have stayed married for 38 years. Their first child, Sam Michael, was born May 30, 1989. In 1991, while filming Doc Hollywood, Fox felt a tremor in his little finger. He was 29. Doctors told him it was young-onset Parkinson’s. He kept it private for seven years so he could keep working and so his young family would not live inside a headline. Twins Aquinnah Kathleen and Schuyler Frances arrived February 15, 1995. He went public in 1998. In 2000 he left weekly television and started the Michael J. Fox Foundation. Their youngest, Esmé Annabelle, was born November 3, 2001. The kids grew up with the disease already in the house. Tracy has said it is “all they know,” and that they help her as much as they help him. Sam works in film and television. Aquinnah studied at Duke. Schuyler studied psychology, later education, and has worked with the foundation. Esmé followed her sister to Duke. They stay mostly off the red carpet. That is a choice, not an accident. Fox’s personal net worth is estimated around $65 million — acting, books, residuals, real estate. The large number that actually belongs to his name is the foundation: more than $2 billion raised for Parkinson’s research, not sitting in a family account. He still falls. He still shows up. Tracy still calls him handsome on his birthday. The four kids still stand in family photos. The marriage is not a fairy tale. It is one day at a time, for 38 years, with a disease that does not take days off.