Michael J. Fox receives the honorary Oscar and is moved. “I’m not giving up on Parkinson’s” – Corriere.it

A one minute standing ovation welcomed Michael J. Fox when his colleague Woody Harrelson (they starred together in Doc Hollywood) called him on stage at the Governor Awards in Los Angeles to receive the Honorary Oscar for his battle with Parkinson’s, which he was diagnosed in 1991, at the age of 29. Although visibly moved by so much affection, the 61-year-old actor did not give up his usual irony in greeting the audience – You’re making me tremble, a phrase that sparked general hilarity – to then describe his fight against the disease, using the song by Bruce Springsteen, No Surrender (Don’t give up), which he defined as a sort of personal anthem.

During his acceptance speech, Fox also thanked his wife Tracy Pollan for her unwavering support (the two have been married since 1988 and have four children) and recalled the awful moment they told him about Parkinson’s. The hardest part was dealing with the certainty of the diagnosis and the uncertainty of the situation. I went seven years without telling anyone before revealing the disease to Barbara Walters and People magazine. It was the dawn of the internet and to break news you had to do this… those were simpler times. Talking to doctors and researchers, they all confirmed that science was ahead, but that there wasn’t enough money. The answers could come with the right investments.

That’s why in 2000 the Back to the Future star founded the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, which over the years has raised over a billion dollars for research. Michael J. Fox has turned a chilling diagnosis into a courageous mission – Harrelson said – . He never asked for the role of Parkinson’s advocate, but he better performance than him. He gave an example of how to fight and how to live.