Actor and activist Michael J. Fox accepted the second annual TIME100 Impact Award—which recognizes a global trailblazer who is pushing boundaries in their industry—at the 2024 TIME100 Gala at New York City’s Jazz at Lincoln Center on Thursday.
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00:00 [ Applause ]
00:06 >> Ladies and gentlemen, the great Michael J. Fox.
00:10 [ Applause ]
00:16 >> I appreciate it.
00:17 Thank you.
00:17 It's an honor to be here and truly humbling
00:19 to accept this recognition.
00:21 I just want to thank Gal Willey and Ryan.
00:24 They're great friends of mine.
00:25 They clearly had important relationships with their fathers
00:29 who both had Parkinson's and both Parkinson's patients.
00:32 And my dad was according to me too.
00:36 And coincidentally his birthday is Saturday.
00:38 He would be 95.
00:41 He didn't make it.
00:46 He did 95.
00:47 He made it to 61.
00:49 I'm 62 so I had that going for me.
00:52 In fact, he passed away a year before I was diagnosed.
00:56 He was a funny, smart guy.
00:59 Though he never even came close to finishing high school,
01:01 he loved words, he loved puzzles.
01:03 He could recite dozens of poems off the top of his head.
01:06 And it's one of his favorites.
01:09 Yesterday upon the stair, I met a man who wasn't there.
01:13 He wasn't there again today.
01:15 I wish I wish he'd go away.
01:17 How is this relevant?
01:18 It turns out it's the perfect metaphor
01:20 for young onset Parkinson's.
01:22 I was climbing a golden staircase,
01:24 minding my own business and suddenly I was blocked
01:26 by someone neither I nor anyone else could see.
01:30 Time passed and no change.
01:33 No one could see it but I knew it was there.
01:36 And it was blocking me from moving forward
01:38 and pushing me backward.
01:40 And I was doing a lot of hiding.
01:43 And the one thing that wasn't going
01:44 to work though was wishing it away.
01:46 As time passed, I was lucky enough to gain the support
01:48 of hundreds of thousands, eventually millions of others
01:51 who wanted to climb those stairs to their own futures
01:54 as badly as I did mine.
01:56 It is those people, doctors, scientists, researchers
01:59 and others, most impressively patients and their families
02:02 and friends who showed up for themselves and others.
02:05 We threw a $2 billion bag around the little monster
02:08 on the stairs and while we have a better sense
02:10 of what we are dealing with, recent breakthroughs
02:12 and biomarkers are an example of this.
02:15 We now know we are dealing with not just a clinical approach
02:18 to Parkinson's disease but truly biological understanding
02:21 of its symptoms, its progressives,
02:24 clues towards finding a cure sooner
02:26 than we ever would have hoped for.
02:28 So thank you and thanks to our amazing staff,
02:30 our truly committed board of directors, my fellow patients
02:34 and their families and in my case that would be Tracy
02:38 and our four adult kids.
02:41 Our adult kids, that's amazing.
02:44 And my dad.
02:46 He never said, he graduated from the School of Hard Knocks.
02:50 He didn't get anywhere near high school.
02:53 He said he had a master's from the University of adversity.
02:58 I didn't finish high school either and I guess
03:00 that makes me a legacy at the University of adversity.
03:04 And since every class of the University
03:06 of adversity is an AP philosophy course,
03:11 I'll close with a quote from Camus.
03:13 In midst of winter, I found there was
03:15 within me an invincible summer.
03:18 Happy birthday, dad.
03:20 Give mom a hug for me.
03:21 [ Applause ]
03:24 [ Music ]