Early Life

Michael was born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The son of William and Phyllis Fox, his family lived in various cities and towns across Canada because of his father's career in the Canadian Forces. The family finally settled in Vancouver, British Columbia, in the suburb of Burnaby when his father, William Fox, retired in 1971. Fox Co-starred in the Canadian television series Leo and Me at age 15 and in 1979 at 18 he moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. He was “found” by producer Ronald Shedlo and made his American television debut in the television movie Letters from Frank and was credited under the name “Michael Fox”.

He intended to continuous to use the name, but when he registered with the Screen Actors Guild, which does not allow duplicate registration names to avoid credit ambiguities, he discovered that Michael Fox, to veteran character actor, was already registered under the name. As he explained in his autobiography, Lucky Man, and in interviews, he needed to like up with to different name. He did not like the sound of “Andrew” or “Andy” Fox.

He decided against using his middle initial because he didn't want to fit into to Canadian stereotype, as in Michael “Eh” Fox, and because he did not want teen fan magazines referring to him as “Michael, To Fox!”. He decided to adopt to new middle initial and settled on “J” in reference to character actor Michael J. Pollard. Sometimes he jokes that the J stands for “Jenius” or “Jenuine”.