How Michael J. Fox almost died on the set of ‘Back to the Future’
Few movies tickle the nostalgia receptors of 1980s kids quite so vigorously as Robert Zemeckis’ Back to the Future. Following the success of Romancing the Stone, Zemeckis’ 1984 classic starring Michael Douglas, the director was granted sizeable funding from Universal Pictures to create the ultimate sci-fi comedy.
Released in 1985, Back to the Future used a DeLorean time machine to return to the 1950s, consolidating three decades of pop culture into one perfect hit of family entertainment. From the soundtrack to iconic one-liners, the movie remains an essential watch nearly four decades on.
With runaway success, both critically and commercially, Zemeckis extended his plot to helm two sequel movies, released in 1989 and 1990. Both movies further explored the friendship of Michael J. Fox’s Marty McFly and Christopher Lloyd’s Dr. Emmett ‘Doc’ Brown across different timespans and themes. Both sequels were a box office hit and fared well with the critics, but the bar set with the first movie was never struck again.
Marty was undoubtedly Fox’s career-defining character. In 1991, following the release of the third and final movie, the star was sadly diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Although he remained active over the subsequent decades, the disease soon began to limit the roles he could take on.
Although Back to the Future holds mainly fond memories for the actor, he had a frightening brush with death while shooting the final movie in 1989. In one of the scenes in the Wild West of 1885, Fox is saved from the noose by his mad scientist pal, Doc.
“This shot was not designed to include my whole body, so for the first couple of takes, I stood on a small wooden box,” Fox wrote of the incident in his 2002 autobiography, Lucky Man: A Memoir.
“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,” he continued. “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.”
Watch the scene from Back to the Future Part III below.
