In the fast-paced world of Hollywood, it’s rare to find a marriage that is able to stand the test of time. That’s just one of the things that makes Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan’s 31 year-long marriage so special. Making their long marriage even more incredible, however, is the fact that they have faced far more challenges during their time together than the average Hollywood couple.
Fox and Pollan first met in the summer of 1985, when she was cast to play 18-year-old brainy dancer Ellen Reed as a love interest for her future husband. Though the sparks flew onscreen, they rarely saw each other off of the set.
“Tracy is really a fish out of water in L.A,” Fox said of her at the time. “She’s so unassuming and natural that it is hard for her to fit in.”
Pollan was not quite taken by Fox when she first met him, and when she was recently asked about her first impression of him, she replied, “He was very cocky. He was funny, but he was cocky.” Both Fox and Pollan were in relationships at the time they met, which made them dating out of the question at first.
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However, when they crossed paths again on the set of the movie Bright Lights, Big City, all of that had changed. It was then that Fox decided to pursue Pollan, and the rest, as they say, as history.
“It sounds really horrible, but it was one of those things,” Fox recalled. “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?'”
It took just seven months of dating for Fox to realize that Pollan was the one for him, and he popped the question on December 26, 1987.
“I wasn’t really worried that she would say no,” he said. “The toughest part was trying to figure out when to get married, and then to figure out how nobody else could know about it.”
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#onthisday #michaeljfox married #tracypollan July 16 1988. #31yearstogether
They married in 1988 and welcomed their first child one year later. All was going well for them until 1991, when Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s at the young age of 29. The news shocked both of them to their core.
“I thought I’d hurt my shoulder doing some stunt because I had a twitch in my pinkie,” Fox said of the day he was diagnosed. “And the doctor said, ‘You have Parkinson’s disease.’ He said, ‘The good news is that you have 10 years of work left.'”
As Fox struggled to come to terms with the diagnosis, Pollan stood by him without complaint as a pillar of support. She later admitted to Oprah Winfrey that she too had to “adjust” to the disease.
“A lot of my adjustment has been dictated by Michael’s point of view,” Pollan said. “He’s so relaxed and so accepting of where he is, and that makes it easier for me, the kids, and everyone around him.”
Through everything they’ve been through, Pollan and Fox have stuck together. Last year, Pollan revealed the secret to their long marriage.
“Just give each other the benefit of the doubt. He assumes I’m doing the best I can,” she said, with Fox adding, “Find the best things about you and the best things about life and celebrate them.”
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