In Sickness and In Health: All About Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan’s Marriage
The couple has weathered some serious life challenges. But through it all, they've remained each other's future.
Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan have one of the longest-lasting relationships in the entertainment world, and their romance began in that most Hollywood of ways: on set.
The pair met in 1985 on the set of the sitcom Family Ties, which starred Fox as the would-be entrepreneur Alex P. Keaton. Pollan played Alex’s girlfriend Ellen Reed in season 4, but the duo didn’t start dating until 1987, when they reunited for the film adaptation of Jay McInerney’s novel Bright Lights, Big City.
Fox and Pollan tied the knot in 1988, but her initial impression of her future husband wasn’t exactly favorable. “I think I thought he was kind of full of himself,” Pollan recalled during a 2005 episode of Inside the Actors Studio. After she got to know him a little better, however, sparks flew. “We started to work together and I got a completely different impression and how completely opposite from that he was—just funny and so smart, and just all of these other things came through those first two weeks we worked together,” she explained.
Related: 'Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie' - All About the Actor's Rousing Documentary
The couple have weathered plenty of difficult times since then, most notably Fox’s 1991 diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. “One of the things I’ll always love Tracy for is that at that moment, she didn't blink,” Fox said during a 2020 appearance on the Today show, recalling the moment he told his wife about his illness. “She's there in the front lines with me every single day. She never pretends to know as much as I know. And the other thing Tracy does is, if there's something funny, let's get to the funny. We'll deal with the tragic later.”
Keep reading for more details on Fox and Pollan’s relationship history.
Who is Michael J. Fox's wife?
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Fox is married to fellow actor Tracy Pollan, who got her start as an actress doing theater in New York City in the early 1980s. She then landed roles in a handful of made-for-TV movies before scoring the part of Ellen Reed on Family Ties for the show’s fourth season, which aired from 1985 to 1986.
When did Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan meet?
Fox and Pollan met on the set of Family Ties in 1985. The duo didn’t start dating immediately, though—their romance began in 1987, when they both appeared in the film Bright Lights, Big City.
“It wasn't that I wasn't attracted to him—I was just dating someone else,” Pollan explained in a 2002 interview with Oprah magazine. “From the beginning, I loved his sense of humor and that brain of his. He's so smart.”
How did Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan meet?
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Fox met Pollan while he was working on Family Ties, the NBC sitcom on which he played young Republican Alex P. Keaton. In season 4, Pollan landed a role as Ellen Reed, a love interest for Alex. At the time, Pollan was dating Kevin Bacon, while Fox was in a relationship with Nancy McKeon.
By the time they reunited for Bright Lights, Big City, they were both single again. “I always thought she was cool, but it was like a couple of married people who worked together and liked each other,” Fox told People in 1989. “It sounds really horrible, but it was one of those things. Someone goes, ‘Did you hear that so-and-so aren’t together anymore?’ And you go, ‘Hmm, that’s too bad. Where’s the phone?’”
When did Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan get married?
Pollan and Fox wed in July 1988 in a ceremony held at the West Mountain Inn in Arlington, Vermont. “I think we really listen to each other,” Pollan told People in March 2023 when asked about the pair’s secret to a happy marriage. “We are there for each other when we need each other.”
How long were Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan married when he was diagnosed?
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Pollan had been married to Fox for less than three years when the actor began displaying symptoms of early-onset Parkinson’s disease while filming the 1991 movie Doc Hollywood. Fox was diagnosed shortly thereafter.
“I can think of a thousand possible scenarios,” Fox told The Guardian in 2020 when asked about what may have caused his illness. “I used to go fishing in a river near paper mills and eat the salmon I caught; I’ve been to a lot of farms; I smoked a lot of pot in high school when the government was poisoning the crops. But you can drive yourself crazy trying to figure it out.”
How did Tracy Pollan react to Michael J. Fox's diagnosis?
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In the 2023 documentary Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, the Back to the Future star described the moment he told his wife that he had Parkinson’s. “I told Tracy the news. ‘In sickness and in health,’ I remember her whispering,” he recalled. “No one outside of my family knew.”
Pollan, for her part, said that she and Fox didn’t initially think he had anything to worry about. “He just came home from the doctor and told me,” she told Oprah magazine in 2002. “Before he’d visited the doctor, we didn't think there was anything seriously wrong.”
Related: 20 Incredible Photos of Michael J. Fox Through the Years
What has Tracy Pollan said about Michael J. Fox's diagnosis?
Pollan has been open over the years about doing everything she can to support her husband amid his health struggles. “Sometimes the kids will need their dad’s help and he’ll say, ‘I’m not feeling great right now,’” Pollan told AARP The Magazine in 2013. “But on the flip side, the first thing he does is go back to the kids when he’s feeling good. It teaches them patience and empathy.”
Fox, for his part, has credited Pollan with being his rock throughout their marriage. “Tracy made it clear that she was with me for the duration,” Fox said in November 2022 while accepting the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Where do Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan live?
Fox and Pollan live in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. The pair previously owned properties in Connecticut and Quogue in The Hamptons.
Do Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan have kids?
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Fox and Pollan share four children: son Sam (born in 1989), twins Schuyler and Aquinnah (born in 1995), and daughter Esmé (born in 2001). In 2020, Fox revealed that his children convinced him to reprise the role of Marty McFly in a Lil Nas X video. “My kids went crazy,” Fox explained during an interview on The Late Late Show With James Corden. “They’re young adults. They went crazy. They’re like, ‘You have to do this. If you do nothing else this year, you do this,’ and I did it.”
Next, Michael J. Fox Speaks Candidly About Living With Parkinson's