Despite Parkinson's, Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan Celebrate 30 Years of Marriage

Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan first met on the set of the hit sitcom Family Ties. When the producers were seeking the best actress to play Alex P. Keaton’s girlfriend, they wanted someone who was smart, gorgeous, and down-to-earth. Pollan, who was 25 at the time, was chosen to play 18-year-old Ellen Reed, who producers believed was the perfect match for America's favorite Reaganite.

Pollan told People Magazine in 1986, "People got tired of all those glitzy, power-hungry people jumping in the sack. Alex and Ellen have an old-fashioned relationship. It's unjaded and optimistic with the sweetness of first love."

Although Ellen and Alex didn’t last long on Family Ties, Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan have been married for 30 years.

From the outside, they might have seemed like an unlikely couple. Tracy and Michael did not spend too much time together after filming Family Ties. Tracy was with Kevin Bacon, her boyfriend of five years with whom she shared a Connecticut farmhouse and a Manhattan apartment. According to Pollan, the two were "probably going to get married." 

And Michael J. Fox couldn't be more opposite than Tracy Pollan. Compared to Fox, Pollan was a "fish out of water in L.A." Also, Fox described her as being "unassuming and natural," which made it hard for her to fit into the Hollywood scene.

After Family Ties, Fox was well on his way to becoming one of the brightest stars in Hollywood. He was the star of the hit 1985 film Back to the Future and life was just starting to become chaotic for him. Fox even described himself as the "boy prince of Hollywood" before he started officially dating Pollan.

Though Fox was in a long-term relationship with Nancy McKeon from Facts of Life, and was also rumored to be dating his co-star Courteney Cox, Pollan and Fox became an item once they started working together on their film Bright Lights, Big City. The cast and crew actually said that their love "blossomed" on set.

It started like this: Fox asked Pollan out to lunch after finding out that her and Bacon were no longer together. In an interview with People Magazine, Fox said, "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?'"

After just 7 months of dating, Fox proposed to her in 1987, and the two got married on July 16, 1988 at the West Mountain Inn, located in Arlington, Vt.

A year later, Fox and Pollan had their first child, Sam, and life couldn't have been better. However, soon, Fox and his family would be blindsided by a diagnosis that would turn his world upside down.

Photo source: People Magazine