Michael J. Fox Terrifies Crowd After Falling On Stage, See The Video
Michael J. Fox recently fell on stage at the Back to the Future expo, but thankfully was uninjured.
First things first: Michael J. Fox is okay! The actor, who has suffered from Parkinson’s since 1991, took a bit of a tumble during the recent Back to the Future expo in Philadelphia. As Marca reports, Fox had just been introduced when he took the stage and tripped, falling face-first into a conveniently positioned couch.
The actor immediately leapt to his feet, assuring the worried crowd that he was perfectly fine and uninjured. Michael J. Fox collapsed back onto the couch before again jumping up. Once Fox was satisfied that everyone knew he was OK, the star took a permanent seat on the couch. Page Six posted a video of the 61-year-old falling on its Twitter account yesterday.
Fox had just been introduced following Back to the Future co-stars Christopher Lloyd and Tom Wilson when he fell. The star came out and immediately started doing an exaggerated bow in the direction of his fellow actors. The quick up-and-down motion may have been what caused Michael J. Fox to tumble into the couch.
Michael Andrew Fox grew up in Canada and didn’t get his “J” until moving to Hollywood at the age of 17. Fox attempted to join the Screen Actors Guild under “Michael Fox,” but there was already a SAG member with that name. Fox quickly ruled out “Michael A. Fox” and became Michael J. Fox professionally as an homage to his favorite actor at the time Michael J. Pollard.
Michael J. Fox had his first big role as Alex P. Keaton on ’80s sitcom Family Ties before exploding into superstardom as Marty McFly in Back to the Future. The sci-fi comedy spawned two sequels, several objectively terrible 8-bit video games, a cartoon, comic books, and even conventions like the one Fox was attending when he had his accident.
The incident comes not long after Michael J. Fox spoke publicly about his deteriorating health. Fox has been candid recently about the increased difficulty of living with Parkinson’s as he gets older, stating, “It’s getting harder every day,” while admitting that his days of acting and memorizing multiple pages of dialogue are behind him.
The actor was diagnosed at the age of 29 and has now lived more of his life with Parkinson’s than he did without it. In the last 30+ years, Fox has become a leading activist for Parkinson’s research. His Michael J. Fox Foundation has raised more than $1 billion to help fight the disease since its creation in the year 2000.
The Michael J. Fox Foundation is currently the world’s largest nonprofit funder of the development of Parkinson’s drugs. The New York Times even called Fox’s Foundation the most “credible voice” in the entire world when it comes to Parkinson’s research.
Unfortunately, falls like the one Michael J. Fox suffered Sunday are going to become more frequent as long as the actor continues to do public appearances. All we can do as fans is keep our fingers crossed that all of Fox’s future tumbles are as minor as this one. Hopefully, the actor will learn from this incident and always insist a soft couch be placed on stage prior to his entrance.
