(Los Angeles) The star of Back to the FutureMichael J. Fox, was awarded an honorary Oscar for his action in favor of the fight against Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative disease from which the Canadian actor has suffered for thirty years.
Aged 61, he received the statuette for the humanitarian commitment of a personality from the world of cinema, during a gala evening on Saturday evening in Los Angeles where all-Hollywood crowded.
“You make me tremble, stop it! “joked the actor receiving a standing ovation, before qualifying this award” a totally unexpected honor “.
Michael J. Fox gained star status in the trilogy Back to the Futurefilmed between 1985 and 1990, in which he plays a teenager traveling through time, Marty McFly.
In 1991, when he was only 29 years old, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and was told that he had only ten years of activity ahead of him.
Some 10 million people worldwide suffer from this disease which affects motor functions.
Woody Harrelson, who starred with him in Doc Hollywood at the time of this diagnosis, told the public on Saturday that he “couldn’t believe it, because Mike had such invincible, super-human qualities.”
“He never indulged in self-pity, on the contrary he turned a chilling diagnosis into a courageous commitment,” he added.
Fox, who rose to fame in the 1980s with the NBC sitcom Family Ties went public with his illness in 1998, when the hit television series was released Spin City.
He went into partial retirement a few years later, devoting himself to his foundation to finance research against Parkinson’s disease, and raising more than a billion dollars.
“I didn’t do anything heroic,” he said on Saturday.
The star, who retired from filming permanently in 2020, suffered multiple bone fractures and other injuries from falls in recent months, requiring shoulder surgery.
On Saturday he walked the stage, asking his wife and his former partner in Family Ties Tracy Pollan to help him carry his statuette.
The honorary Oscars are awarded to reward the work of a lifetime, and since 2009 have been the subject of a separate award from the main ceremony, with an overloaded program.
Among the main personalities distinguished are the actresses Angelina Jolie and Liz Taylor, and the star host Oprah Winfrey.
The golden statuette was also awarded on Saturday to Diane Warren, author-composer of hits like I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing from Aerosmith. Nominated 13 times for Oscars, she had never won one before.
“I have quite a few speeches that have remained crumpled up in my pockets,” she joked, to loud applause.
Peter Weir, Australian director of Witness, Dead Poets Society or The Truman Showmade a rare return to Hollywood to receive his Oscar.
French director Euzhan Palcy, originally from Martinique, received the statuette for a career including in 1989 A Dry White Seasonbased on André Brink’s novel about apartheid in South Africa, with Marlon Brando in the cast.
“My stories are neither white nor black, they are universal, colorful,” she said.