Michael J. Fox and his wife, Tracy Pollan, may have redecorated their Upper East Side apartment just two years ago. But they got a second chance at a makeover when Fox decided to replicate the couple’s Fifth Avenue pad in his new sitcom, “The Michael J. Fox Show,” premiering Thursday.
“When Tracy [guest-starred] on the show and the two of them were sitting on set in the dining room, it’s basically them sitting in their real-life dining room talking,” laughs Betsy Brandt, who plays Fox’s wife, Annie, on the series.
With one main difference.
“Tracy was like, ‘I wish our apartment was this big!’ ” says Brandt. It’s not surprising that Fox, 52, has chosen to bring his home — and family — to the set. After all, many of his real-life struggles and triumphs will feature into the new NBC sitcom, which centers around a former news anchor (Fox) who jumps back into the business after having put his career on hold due to Parkinson’s disease.
It’s a familiar narrative for the “Back to the Future” star.
In 1991, he was diagnosed with the disease, which causes a breakdown of the central nervous system. Fox kept his struggles private for seven years, finally leaving his hit series “Spin City” in 2000 due to his deteriorating health.
“The Michael J. Fox Show” is his very meta comeback — and one that his family was on board with.
“I think most of the decisions he makes are about his family,” says Alan Ruck, who co-starred alongside Fox in “Spin City” and remembers the actor bringing his little twin girls to the set. “They looked like Cindy Lou Who — these teeny critters with their hair up on the top of their heads,” he says.
When Fox told his wife about his plans to return to TV full time, he jokes that she was just happy to have him out of her hair. “[My family] were all kind of like, ‘Yeah, you got to . . . do something. ’Cause you’re just hanging around the house,’ ” Fox told the “Today” show on Wednesday.
“That’s what Tracy’s so brilliant at,” Fox elaborated to The Post recently. “Separating life from the Parkinson’s. And that’s been really important to me.”
MJF and Pollan, 53, are a rarity among Hollywood couples, somehow managing to survive the tests of fame — and a degenerative disorder.
They met on the set of “Family Ties,” on which Fox starred from 1982 to 1989. Pollan played Fox’s girlfriend for 13 episodes in 1987. A make-believe love interest led to a real-life wife. The two married in 1988, at West Mountain Inn in Arlington, Vt. They have four children together: 24-year-old Sam, 18-year-old twins Aquinnah and Schuyler, and their youngest daughter, Esmé, 11.
Fox and Pollan make a point of keeping their kids grounded.
“I think that’s one of the reasons he moved to New York,” Ruck explains. (The Fox family moved from LA to the city before he was diagnosed. They now live just three blocks from Pollan’s childhood home.)
“He told me once he didn’t want to live in a community where kids in elementary school were saying things like, ‘My dad had a bigger opening weekend than your dad did,’ ” adds Ruck.
Friends and colleagues say Fox raises his children with respect — and a dose of reality.
“He’s definitely the kind of parent who treats his kids like people and not his property. I love the way he talks about his kids,” Brandt says.
Sure, the Foxes still have their “Hollywood” moments, like courtside Knicks tickets and famous pals, such as George Stephanopoulos of “Good Morning America” and his wife, Ali Wentworth.
But when it comes down to it, they’re really just the (famous) family next door. On any given day, they can be found at home, doing the New York Times crossword puzzle together (it’s a morning tradition) and eating one of Pollan’s signature dishes, like chicken bouillabaisse.
And though Pollan is still a working actress — she appears in the second episode of her husband’s show as the sexy and tempting neighbor, and was in the 2011 TV movie “Justice for Natalee Holloway” as the mother, Beth — she still manages to whip up regular homemade meals.
“Tracy cooks every night,” says Brooke Gomez, who redid the Foxes’ uptown abode with her mother, Mariette Himes Gomez.
When Gomez Associates redecorated the home, it was important to the Foxes that their children’s needs were prioritized.
“Tracy was very adamant about Sam having a room, even though he’s in and out of the house,” says Gomez.
The twins decided to continue sharing a bedroom, as they had for their whole lives.
And the family portraits hanging in the hallway — including some tender candids of Pollan and Fox kissing — were each numbered before the frames were repainted to match the new floors. The Foxes wanted them hung in the same exact order as before.
“There’s not a single sign of celebrity in the entire house,” says Gomez.
One of the first steps of the “freshening-up” process was to relocate all the kids’ handmade knickknacks from years past that had taken over the fireplace mantle.
“There was a very sweet element where they would keep everything from their children,” says Gomez.
“When I got there, Tracy picked up something one of the children had made that was displayed on the mantle, and said, ‘This could find a new home.’ ”
The family’s rabbi, Peter Rubinstein of the Central Synagogue in Midtown East, says Fox and Pollan’s “shared humility and core values” are apparent in every aspect of their lives, including child-rearing.
Rubinstein says the family regularly attends temple for major holidays and life events, including the bar and bat mitzvahs of the children. “They do it no differently than any other family would do it. They don’t ask for special attention in any way,” says Rubinstein.
(Although Fox doesn’t subscribe to any particular religion, the rabbi says the star has his blessing: “He’s comfortable handing down the Torah . . . he actually listens to sermons, and that’s pretty extraordinary . . . and he remembers them!”)
When Fox and Pollan aren’t leaning on faith, they’re leaning on one another. “On some level, they probably find a reflection in each other,” says Michael Boatman, who co-starred with Fox in “Spin City.”
“In some ways, Tracy is tough, where Michael is a little bit more soft, but he has a resilience, obviously, with regards to dealing with his condition that few people can really ever claim.” Fox received the heartbreaking news that he had Parkinson’s merely three years after he and Pollan wed.
The actor tried to work through the pain. Ruck says Fox would delay taking his medicine until right before showtime, so he could be in peak form when the cameras started rolling. “He was often suffering from debilitating cramps and really unpleasant stuff so he could have those four hours of being shake-free [on-camera] . . . and it just got to be too much,” says Ruck.
Pollan was by her husband’s side through it all.
But friends say Parkinson’s didn’t change their relationship.
“I think she always was the rock. I think that’s why she and Michael got married; I think that’s why he fell in love with her — because that’s the person she is,” says Ruck.
“I didn’t see any big transformation in Tracy,” he continues. “She was just Tracy. She was always there for him.”
Additional reporting by Robert Rorke