JIMMY Cagney recognized the similarities in 1985 – the diminutive height, the taut athleticism, the bouncy step.
The old gent – 86 years-old and a year away from death – telephoned the “Donahue” show to tell 24-year-old Michael J. Fox he thought so highly of his work that if anyone ever makes a movie about his life, he’d like Michael to play him.
The movie never happened and now it never will.
Fox, an actor accustomed to exerting complete control over his body, is slowly being robbed of that ability by Parkinson’s disease.
Somehow, though, he managed to put his illness in check for a few days in March – either through medication, sheer willpower or a combination of both – to film his swan song, a one-hour finale of “Spin City” that is nothing short of heroic.
In the episode, Deputy Mayor Mike Flaherty (Fox) copes with a TV reporter investigating the relationship of a mobster with Mayor Winston (Barry Bostwick) and various members of his staff. The mobster happens to be dating City Hall accountant Nikki Faber (Connie Britton) and charms everyone in the office.
Flaherty, the expert in spinning stories to protect the mayor, realizes that he’ll have to be the fall guy – setting up Fox’s departure from the series.
Like Cagney, Fox seems wound like a watch ready to pop a spring. He doesn’t mean to steal scenes, but he’s the one you look at.
In the finale, watch closely and you can sense the effort he expends to overcome and suppress the neurological havoc being wrought by Parkinson’s. It’s an astonishing achievement and, in light of his illness, makes for an episode that is easily the most emotional TV show of the season.
“Television won’t be the same. Neither will we,” reads a full-page ad from ABC in this week’s People magazine promoting the “Spin City” finale.
While it might be easy to dismiss the ad copy as hyperbolic, for some people, it has the ring of truth. Fox is the kind of TV personality who engenders so much affection in his fans that for many of us, television really won’t be the same after he retreats into his private life.
“I do firmly believe that there will be a cure [for Parkinson’s] by the time I am 50,” Fox tells Diane Sawyer in the “20/20” interview taped May 2 at the Council on Foreign Relations at 68th and Park. “I’m 38. It gives me 12 years; it’s a nice window. I feel good about it. I’ll put money on it.”
See you then, Michael. We look forward to it.
