Disabled World (Jan. 25, 2010)- "Back to the Future" star and Parkinson's activist Michael J. Fox offered life lessons to a crowd of over 2,000 in an inspiring keynote address at the Advertising Specialty Institute's national trade show in Orlando Tuesday.With humor, wit and honesty, Fox moved and encouraged attendees. "The script of your life is not written yet," he said, stressing his fight with Parkinson's disease has been an opportunity to help others. "Life is about choices and the only choice I don't have is about Parkinson's. Everything else is up to me."
Drawing on his natural talent for comedy, Fox told the crowd about his start in acting while he was growing up in British Columbia, Canada. "I had a great drama teacher in high school," Fox said. "He used to say to us that we're all here because we're not all there." Fox moved to Hollywood to pursue his acting dreams but admitted he quickly became poor and frustrated and was days away from going back to Canada to work in construction. "My apartment was so small I had to do my dishes in the shower," he joked.
Fox finally got his first big break when the producers of the show "Family Ties" called. "I didn't have a phone, so I closed the deal on a pay phone outside a chicken joint," Fox said. In short time, Fox was a star, but at age 29 his life would change yet again. "One day there was a tremor in my pinky finger," he said. "Later a doctor sat me down and told me I had Parkinson's. I didn't want to believe it."
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