Michael J. Fox Celebrates 36th Wedding Anniversary With Tracy Pollan
Lea Thompson Flashes “Back to the Future”
Michael J. Fox is celebrating his past, present and future with wife Tracy Pollan.
“Here’s to a lifetime of love with the love of a lifetime,” the Back to the Future star wrote in a July 16 Instagram post in honor of their 36th wedding anniversary. “Happy anniversary, T. Forever.”
Naturally, Tracy shared her love right back with a few heart emojis in the comments. And even Michael’s Back to the Future costar Christopher Lloyd couldn’t help but drop one, too.
Though they met in 1985 while playing an onscreen couple in Family Ties, Michael and Tracy took some time to warm up to each other. After all, Tracy was dating Footloose star Kevin Bacon, while Michael was coupled up with The Facts of Life’s Nancy McKeon. However, the duo reunited for Bright Lights, Big City in 1988—and this time, he was excited to hear Tracy was now single. (For his part, he split from Nancy in late 1985.)
“It sounds really horrible, but it was one of those things,” Fox told People in 1989. “Someone goes, ‘Did you hear that so-and-so aren’t together anymore?’ and you go, ‘Hmm, that’s too bad. Where’s the phone?’”
Soon after, the duo started dating and tied the knot after just seven months on July 16, 1988. They are now parents to Sam, 35, Aquinnah, 32, Schuyler, 29, and Esmé, 22.
In their 34 years together, Tracy and Michael have faced their fair share of ups and downs, including his Parkinson’s diagnosis—which he revealed to the public in 1998. But, as it turns out, the illness only further showed him that his marriage is built to last.
Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
“Tracy was the right person for me, and it has been amazing,” Michael told O magazine in 2002. “Through it all, we’ve loved each other.”
And they’re certainly not the only pair who have stuck together through thick and thin. For more inspiring couples, read on…
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Dolly Parton & Carl Thomas Dean
She’s a superstar performer known around the world. He’s a private man who stays away from the spotlight. But together, they’ve built a marriage that has lasted more than 56 years. “I like it when people say, ‘How did it last so long?'” Dolly told ET Canada in December 2022. “I say, ‘It’s stay going.’ There’s a lot to be said about that. So we’re not in each other’s face all the time. He’s not in the business, so we have different interests, but yet we have the things we love to do together. So it was meant to be. He was the one I was supposed to have and vice versa.”
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Samuel L. Jackson & LaTanya Richardson Jackson
There’s no breaking the bond of these college sweethearts. “In the beginning, we always said the most revolutionary thing that Black people could do was stay together, raise their children with the nucleus of having a father and a mother, since everybody likes to pretend that that’s not the dynamic of the African American family,” LaTanya told People in March 2022. “That it’s just children out here being raised by women, which we know is false. In order to change that narrative, we made a decision to say, ‘We are going to stay together no matter what. We’ll figure it out.'”
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Bonnie Bartlett & William Daniels
When you find joy in life’s daily activities, Bonnie says your marriage could last forever. “We’re very happy,” she told People when celebrating 72 years of marriage in January. “We sit in this house and we do things. He reads his New York Times and he does Cameos mostly. And we do conventions and things like that. We just like to be with each other. And we would do anything for each other.”
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Ron & Cheryl Howard
These high school sweethearts celebrated their 50th anniversary in November 2020. “There’s no technique,” Ron told People just one year earlier. “There’s no tactic other than communication is really important. You have to learn to communicate and have difficult conversations in constructive ways.”
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Christopher & Georgianne Walken
After meeting during a production of West Side Story in the ’60s, this couple continues to savor every moment together with gratitude. “Every once in a while, I’ll be looking out the window, and I’ll think, ‘I feel pretty good,'” Christopher told New York Times Magazine in February 2022. “My bills are paid, my wife is healthy, the weather’s nice. That’s really all I care about: when, apropos of nothing, I happen to look out the window and think, ‘This is good.'”
Clint Spaulding/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
Alan & Arlene Alda
After 65 years of marriage, the couple has found their groove away from the spotlight in Long Island, New York. In an interview with The New Yorker, Alan said he and his wife enjoy playing chess during the day and ladder ball before dusk. Then, it’s a nice dinner and a quality TV show. It’s not noisy in the country,” he said in June 2022. “I don’t have to show up places. Places come to me.”
Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for TCM
Martin & Janet Sheen
Through sickness and in health! After Martin recovered from a heart attack and nervous breakdown in the late ’70s, he recalled a few words his wife told him. “It was very serious, and she handled it like a pro,” he told Closer Weekly in 2016. “She had me laughing in the most dire circumstances. She said, ‘Don’t take yourself so seriously.’ Every day is a celebration with this dame.”
David Crotty/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
Lily Tomlin & Jane Wagner
After meeting in 1971, Lily and Jane have been inseparable. When asked to share advice for other couples, Lily kept it simple. “We all have a secret,” Lily told reporters in 2019. “It’s just the secret is that you’re committed and care and you want it to work out. You don’t want to walk away from something that’s important.”
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