Michael J. Fox

He nearly missed Back to the Future entirely. Eric Stoltz filmed for weeks before producers called Fox instead, but Family Ties wasn't letting him go. For two solid months, Fox ran TV rehearsals from 10am to 6pm and raced to the film set until 2:30am. The film made $381 million. NBC's Brandon Tartikoff had already written him off as not "the kind of face you'll ever find on a lunchbox." Fox mailed him one, inscribed: "This is for you to put your crow in."

The Michael J. Fox Foundation has raised over $2.5 billion for Parkinson's research since 2000. He received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, a Presidential Medal of Freedom, and his Apple TV+ documentary Still won four Emmys. In 2020 he retired from acting, saying memory loss had made the job impossible. He called the Shrinking creators anyway to point out they'd made a Parkinson's show without him. The disease didn't account for the audacity.

Michael J. Fox isn't his real name. He's Michael Andrew Fox, and he became "Michael J. Fox" because another actor named Michael Fox was already in the SAG directory. He picked J as a tribute to character actor Michael J. Pollard, and avoided "Michael A. Fox" specifically to prevent teen magazine headlines like "Michael, A Fox!" He was the first guest when Jon Stewart took over The Daily Show in 1999, and he spent part of his early LA years as an undocumented immigrant, too afraid to return to Canada until lawyers sorted it out.