Lucky Man (3 page)

So what had happened to my resolve to take an extended break? To the litany of reasons why my time would be better spent in the bosom of my family, to my understanding that so much time spent on location was taking a toll on me? All this had dissolved in an acid bath of fear and professional insecurity.

Actors don't become actors because they're brimming with self-confidence. Ross Jones, my junior high drama teacher, would, at a certain point in every school production, address the cast: “Remember,” he'd say, “we are
all here
because we're not
all there
.” An actor's burning ambition, when you think about it, is to spend as much time as possible pretending to be somebody else. For those of us lucky (or unstable) enough to become professional performers, the uncertainty about who we really are only increases. For many actors, this self-doubt is like a worm eating away at you and growing, incongruously, in direct proportion to your level of success. No matter how great the acceptance, adulation, and accumulation of wealth, gnawing at you always is the deep-seated belief that you're a fake, a phony. Even if you can bullshit your way through whatever job you're working on now, you'd better prepare for the likelihood that you're never going to get another one.

In the face of all evidence to the contrary, this is exactly how I felt about my own career in 1990. Throughout the eighties I had worked incessantly, and the rewards had been enormous. Achieving that level of acceptance, getting to the top of the mountain, so to speak, had been arduous, but there were so many new highs on the way up that it felt more like celebration than sweat. Staying there, however, maintaining that foothold, was an ordeal.

A large part of my success was a result of the two “franchises” I had stumbled into—the twin phenomena of
Family Ties
and the
Back to the Future
series. They offered me financial security and the guarantee I could reprise the roles of both Alex Keaton and Marty McFly more or less indefinitely.

This left me free to experiment and accept riskier roles for less money. So when
Light of Day
;
Bright Lights, Big City
; or
Casualties of War
failed to perform at the box office, it was hardly the end of the world. I'd go back to my television series in the fall, and at some point be able to climb back into the DeLorean. But by the summer of 1990, all that had changed. The TV series had wrapped for good, the
Back to the Future
sequels had been released and were already on their way to video. My cockiness had morphed into caution. I just didn't feel comfortable finishing any job without a contract for another in hand. Without the safety net of
Family Ties
and
Back to the Future,
the stakes were greater now than they'd ever been.

If the new project meant time away from my family, that had to be weighed against the reality that I now
had
a family. That hoary old phrase “the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed” suddenly had meaning for me. This wasn't a time for resting on my laurels or sitting on my ass. This was a time to get while the getting was good.

Who knows, maybe I sensed it wouldn't last forever, that the other shoe was about to drop. Could it be possible that I had somehow intuited that my career clock was ticking?

Unlikely. This keep-your-head-down-and-keep-moving mentality had always been, as far back as I could remember, a major part of my personality, my modus operandi. Even as a kid, I lacked the faith required to be still. Maybe it was because I was undersized or because my dreams were oversized, but I'd always relied on my ability to elude, evade, and anticipate any obstacle or potential bully. It is one of the great ironies of my life that only when it became virtually impossible for me to keep my body from moving would I find the peace, security, and spiritual strength to stand in one place. I couldn't be still until I could—literally—no longer keep still.

THE PINKIE REBELLION

Gainesville, Florida—November 13, 1990

Fifteen minutes into that first morning of the custody battle for my pinkie, the tiny tremor simply would not stop. Maybe if I ignored it for a while . . . I went into the bathroom, pulled open the mirrored door of the medicine cabinet, found a bottle of Tylenol, and dry-swallowed two. Standing in front of the larger vanity mirror, I held up my left hand, as if by studying its reflection I might gain a little objectivity. No such luck. Now there were two twitching pinkies. But wait, the medicine cabinet's mirrored door was ajar, creating a reflection within a reflection,
ad infinitum
; now there weren't just two—there were too many to count. It was a chorus line of dancing pinkies—it was the freakin' Pinkettes.

The pills weren't going down. I padded out to the kitchen, pulled a ginger ale from the refrigerator, and wandered into the sitting room. Hair in revolt, eyes at half mast, I stood buck naked in the center of the pseudo-luxurious Presidential Suite doing everything short of talking to my hand like Señor Wences. Hell, forget Señor Wences, I was about five pounds of fingernail short of an end-stage Howard Hughes.

I continued wandering from room to room, as if a solution might appear around the next corner, all the while trying a variety of strategies to impose my dominion over this digit. I pinched and pulled it. I pinned it to the nightstand with the Gideon's Bible. I folded it into a fist and held it flat against my chest, and always the result was the same. It would submit to whatever hold I applied, but four or five seconds after I let up, away it would go again. Frustrated to the point of wanting to amputate, I was convinced that would only mean having to watch the little bugger skitter across the carpet like an extra from a Roger Corman movie.

“For Christ's sake, Mike,” I tried to tell myself. “It's just your freaking finger.” But that was just the point: it wasn't
mine
, it was somebody else's. My pinkie was possessed.

Perspective was key, though, and since I'd clearly lost mine, it was time to avail myself of someone else's. I called Brigette, my assistant. Brig did a fantastic job running my office, but out on location, on nonindustry soil, she was a godsend. Her job, as she saw it, was to make my job as easy as possible. To that end, she'd keep track of my schedule, anticipate my needs and concerns, act as point person with the production company, and generally run interference with the whole outside world. In short, her mission was to protect and polish the bubble.

Trying my best not to sound panicky, I casually mentioned that I might be having a minor physiological reaction to something. I described what was happening to my finger. She scared the hell out of me by suggesting that it sounded to her like a neurological problem, and did I want to speak to her brother, who happened to be a brain surgeon up in Boston? “No, that's okay. I really don't think it's that big a deal,” I said, trying to convince myself as much as her. “I'll just give Tracy a call.”

Before hanging up, Brig reminded me I was on a “will notify,” which meant my call time had yet to be determined—I'd probably be needed on set later in the afternoon.

Brigette may have had a doctor in the family but, in Tracy, I had the next best thing: a hypochondriac. By that I don't mean she's an obsessive-compulsive, doom-and-gloom, stay-in-bed-with-the-covers-pulled-over-her-head neurotic who spends her spare time taking her own blood pressure. She's not crazy, just a little sensitive to the subtlest fluctuation in her health, not to mention the health of all those around her. As long as I've known her, she's owned the latest edition of the
Columbia School of Medicine Encyclopedia of Health
, and has an uncanny knack for matching symptoms with life-threatening diseases. While I was in Florida, Tracy had remained in Manhattan with Sam. I reached her by telephone that morning at the gym. Tracy was just about to start her workout, but she encouraged me to take my time and explain in complete detail exactly what I was experiencing. Without sounding at all patronizing, she promised me that what I was describing didn't fit the profile of any disease, affliction, or injury that she was familiar with. I was relieved to hear this, and clung to her assurance that the episode would almost certainly pass and be forgotten by the end of the day. Had I ever been this patient and empathetic with her? So many times I'd dismissed her fears: “That's a freckle, Tracy, not a malignant melanoma.” “No, you're not going deaf, it's called swimmer's ear.” I felt guilty, but I felt better. She was right. This was nothing. It would blow over. I was fine. We traded “I love you and miss you's,” but just as I was about to hang up, as an afterthought she quickly added, “You know, Brigette's brother is a brain surgeon. Why don't you give him a call just for the hell of it?”

Shit.

Ten minutes after I'd spoken to Tracy, Brigette was in my room with her brother on the line. “Just a second, Phillip, here he is.” Brigette handed me the phone. And so I went through the whole pinkie deal one more time. Brigette's brother, Dr. Phillip Roux-Lough, very serious, very professional, came up with a host of possible explanations, each one more horrific than the last. I was amazed to learn that people my age actually had strokes and aneurysms—good God. The words
brain tumor
also surfaced, but this was not an area I wanted to explore too deeply. He asked if I'd had any recent episodes of physical trauma. With so many to choose from, I ran through a few of my greatest hits, so to speak, and one incident in particular intrigued him.

While making
Back to the Future, Part III
in the winter of 1989, I had actually hanged myself during a botched film stunt. Marty McFly, stranded in 1885, finds himself at the mercy of a lynch mob. At the last moment before they string him up, he manages to insert his left hand between the rope and his neck. This shot was not designed to include my whole body, so for the first couple of takes, I stood on a small wooden box. While this was technically a stunt, it was also my close-up, so Charlie was on the sidelines. No matter how I shifted my weight, the swinging effect was not realistic, so I offered to try it without the support of the box. This worked well for the next couple of takes, but on the third I miscalculated the positioning of my hand. Noose around my neck, dangling from the gallows pole, my carotid artery was blocked, causing me briefly to pass out. I swung, unconscious, at the end of the rope for several seconds before Bob Zemeckis, fan of mine though he was, realized even I wasn't that good an actor.

Dr. Lough suspected a connection between the events of that morning in Gainesville and the unintended drama on a film set ten months or so before. He suggested I consult a local neurologist.

As it happens, the University of Florida in Gainesville is home to a world-renowned neurology department. That afternoon, the
Doc Hollywood
producers arranged for the doctor in charge to give me a checkup. I was greeted at the front door by the neurologist, a few of his associates, and perhaps a favored student or two, as though I was some sort of visiting dignitary. Didn't they know that this was a patient visit, not some sort of celebrity meet-and-greet?

That question was answered when I was shown into an examination room, handed a robe, and instructed to strip down to my underwear. For the next twenty minutes or so I was put through what resembled a battery of highway patrol sobriety tests: walking a straight line one foot in front of the other, extending my arms and bringing each forefinger to the tip of my nose, closing my eyes and walking forward, backward, sideways, and hopping up and down on each foot. The exercises most relevant to my particular complaint involved an intense exploration of the wonders of the opposable thumb. The doctor asked me to touch the tip of each finger to the tip of my thumb, one after the other, again and again, each time more rapidly than the last. I was quickly reminded of why humans wear the pants in the primate family. I could do whatever they asked, which was reassuring. What was even more reassuring was the attitude of the doctors after observing me. They didn't seem at all worried. After I had dressed and taken a seat in the doctor's office, he informed me that not only was I fine, but that he wished he had videotaped my examination for his students as an example of what a completely normal and healthy neurological specimen looked like. In his opinion, the source of the finger spasms was most likely a minor injury to my ulna. “You mean my funny bone?” With a confirming nod, the doc joked that wasn't it appropriate, given what I did for a living. We had a nice little chuckle over that one.

So did these doctors screw up? I honestly don't think so. Neurological disorders like mine are so rare in people my age that the symptoms would have to be blatant before any responsible physician could confirm so serious a diagnosis. In retrospect, though, I like to joke that what else should I have expected from the University of Florida, home of the football Gators, than for the team doctor to tell the quarterback he was okay to go back into the game?

So back into the game I went. I finished filming
Doc Hollywood
in February 1991. For the final two months, production had moved from Florida to Los Angeles. Once again, ever restless, always on the search for my next opportunity, I launched myself headlong into another job. Bob Zemeckis was producing
Tales from the Crypt
, an anthology series for HBO based on the gruesome blood-soaked EC comic books of the same name, and he'd offered me an episode to direct. Eager to develop my directing skills as a backup to my acting career, I threw myself into the project with high enthusiasm—but flagging energy.

The twitching in my pinkie persisted, but now my ring and middle finger occasionally joined in on the act. I was experiencing weakness in my left hand, stiffness in my shoulder, and achiness in the muscles on the left side of my chest. I was convinced now that my problem was physiological and not neurological, probably related to the
Back to the Future
hanging. I assumed it was something I could take care of with physical therapy, and that could wait until after I finished working. As a matter of fact, I decided it might as well wait until after my summer vacation. Maybe it was out of embarrassment for being so uncharacteristically panicked in the first place, but I retreated into my inherited Anglo-Irish predisposition toward stoicism. Finishing up my directing chores on
Crypt,
I resolved not to accept any film offers until after a good long break with my family. I owed that much to Tracy and to Sam. Hell, I owed that much to myself.