Michael J. Fox played a key role in shaping one of the most popular sci-fi series of all time as the lead actor in the Back to the Future trilogy. Filming Back to the Future III almost cost him his life – and for a long time he thought that his later Parkinson’s disease had something to do with it.
How Michael J. Fox put himself in real danger on the set of Back to the Future III
While in the first two parts Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson) was the main antagonist, in part 3 Marty (Michael J. Fox) faced Biff’s great-grandfather in the Wild West: Buford Tannen, also played by Thomas F. Wilson. At their first meeting, Buford and his henchmen want to hang MartyShortly before he dies, he is saved by Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd).
On the set of Back to the Future III, the scene was just as dangerous for Michael J. Fox. According to Collider, Fox wrote about the incident in his memoir Comeback: Parkinson Will Not Win *. While a stuntman was used for most of the shots, the actor had to for the close-ups yourselfTo be on the safe side, he should stand on a box and move as if he were actually hanging.
In the scene, Marty can only save himself by putting his hands in the loop, giving himself enough room to breathe. However, it didn’t look good enough on film. So the actor offered to hold on and actually hanging in the air. In his memoirs he wrote:
This worked well for the next few takes, but on the third one I miscalculated the positioning of my hand. Noose around my neck dangling from the gallows pole blocked my carotid arteryso that I briefly fainted.
Fortunately, director Robert Zemeckis stayed alert. He noticed that Fox actually had problems. Today Michael J. Fox can joke about it:
I hung unconscious at the end of the rope for a few seconds before Bob Zemeckis, who was a huge fan of mine, realized that even I wasn’t that good of an actor.
Zemeckis immediately had Fox taken down from the rope, saving his life. If he had waited a little longer, it is not unlikely that Fox would have left the set with brain damage. At first it seemed as if the accident had had a different effect on the actor.
In 1991, Michael J. Fox Parkinson diagnosedHe did not disclose the illness during the 1990s and continued to work normally. In his memoirs, he reports that he initially only noticed it in his little finger. The doctor he consulted considered many possibilities for the cause of the tremor in his finger, including alcohol, a brain aneurysm or even the trauma from the accident. After further examinations, the seizures were diagnosed as Parkinson’s disease, which had nothing to do with the near-death experience in Back to the Future III.
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