Michael J. Fox made Emmy history 40 years ago and set a benchmark that has yet to be broken. In 1986, Fox was a second-time nominee for playing Alex P. Keaton, the conservative-leaning eldest child of former hippie parents on NBC’s sitcom Family Ties — and a burgeoning movie star on the heels of 1985’s Back to the Future and Teen Wolf. At 25, he won the award for best lead actor in a comedy series, beating out such veterans as Harry Anderson, Ted Danson and Bob Newhart, and became the youngest actor ever to win the prize. (The second youngest winner, The Bear‘s Jeremy Allen White, was 32 when he won his first Emmy in the category in 2023.)
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The episode for which Fox won his award, “The Real Thing,” was notable for another reason: It featured Tracy Pollan’s first appearance on the series. She and Fox played a couple and later married in real life.
The win was the first of three consecutive Emmys for Fox and his work on Family Ties. He would go on to win two more Emmys — comedy lead actor in 2000 for Spin City and a guest acting honor in 2009 for Rescue Me — among 18 career nominations. And he could be in the running for another guest acting Emmy for Apple TV’s Shrinking. A fierce advocate for research into Parkinson’s disease, which has affected him since he was 29, Fox played Gerry, a Parkinson’s patient who befriends Harrison Ford’s Dr. Paul Rhoades, also diagnosed with Parkinson’s, in the show’s most recent season.
This story first appeared in a June stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.