Michael J. Fox poses with his mother Phyllis Fox during Canada's Walk of Fame induction ceremonies in Toronto on Sept. 6, 2008.MARK BLINCH/Reuters
In addition to raising film and TV icon Michael J. Fox and his siblings, Phyllis Fox was a fundraising powerhouse and philanthropist.
At the 2022 New York Comic Con this month, Mr. Fox shared a story about his mother, who died Sept. 24 at age 92 in the Vancouver area. He recalled that she had discouraged him from accepting the starring role on the film Back to the Future while he was also working on the sitcom Family Ties.
“I was 23 years old, and I called her, she was in Canada, and I said, ‘They want me to do this Steven Spielberg movie, but I have to do it at night and I have to do Family Ties in the daytime.’ And she said, ‘You’ll be too tired,’” Mr. Fox told the media.
He recalled assuring his mother: “I live for this kind of tired. It’ll be OK.”
In the years that followed, after her son was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, Ms. Fox steered many donations to his namesake foundation. It has contributed $1-billion to research into the degenerative brain condition.
She also generated funds for diabetes research and several other charitable causes, including the Michael J. Fox Theatre, located in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby, B.C., where the actor grew up.
“I really couldn’t tell you – nor likely could Mom – how much money she might have been responsible for raising,” said her daughter Kelli Fox, an award-winning actor and director of plays across Canada.
“I just know she was always happy to be part of a team. Whether it was for Parkinson’s or diabetes [research], or for the theatre, those communities she became part of were a real source of joy and pride for her.
“Her circle of friends was enormous.”
Gary Morrey, who chaired the Michael J. Fox Theatre’s board for 25 years, said Ms. Fox helped raise $1.4-million for that venue alone.
“If it weren’t for Phyllis, we wouldn’t be able to name the theatre the Michael J. Fox Theatre,” Mr. Morrey said.
Nor, Mr. Morrey added, would the theatre have been able to gain from Michael’s involvement in a since discontinued annual charity golf tournament, where he golfed and served as an auction emcee.
Ms. Fox also golfed in, or assisted at, the tournament and sat on the theatre board for about 23 years, co-ordinating its scholarship program, which benefits high school students.
Ms. Fox’s other charitable efforts included participation with the Order of the Amaranth (a faith organization composed of Master Masons and their female relatives) and several other service organizations. She also appeared regularly at charitable events in various Canadian locales, such as the Parkinson’s Curling Classic in Regina.
Meanwhile, Ms. Fox’s own donations helped launch Canuck Place Children’s Hospice, which is strongly supported by the National Hockey League’s Vancouver Canucks.
“Phyllis was one of Canuck Place Children’s Hospice founding donors and continued to give for almost 30 years,” Canuck Place CEO Denise Praill said. “She made a gift to the campaign to open the first free-standing pediatric palliative care hospice in 1994. The hospice welcomed their first patient in the fall of 1995 and now has over 830 children and families on program.”
Ms. Fox was a “special member” of the facility’s courage builder program whereby a donor group gives monthly, helping Canuck Place deliver complex care to children and families in two provincial hospice locations and in patients’ homes, Ms. Praill added.
“Through her generosity, Phyllis ensured children with life-threatening illnesses and their families across B.C. and the Yukon had access to pediatric palliative care,” Ms. Praill said. “She supported improving the quality of life of children [aged] 0-19 and making the most of the time remaining for a child with their family.”
Ms. Fox also donated to the annual Canucks for Kids Telethon, which raises money for the Canucks for Kids Foundation. Although the foundation is a separate entity, it funds about four per cent of Canuck Place’s yearly operating budget while assisting charities that support children’s health, wellness, education and hockey.
Born Nov. 27, 1929 in Winnipeg, Phyllis Evelyn Piper was the fourth of Henry (Skip) Piper and Jane (Jenny) (née Scott) Piper’s five children. Skip Piper was a First World War veteran and customs agent. Jenny Piper was a homemaker.
The Pipers moved to B.C. in the 1930s and Phyllis grew up in the Vancouver-area community of Ladner, where she competed in school sports. After graduating from high school, she worked at a local newspaper.
During those years, she met and married a young soldier, William (Bill) Fox, an encryption and decoding specialist who worked at the nearby Vancouver Wireless Station, an army signals intelligence operation.
According to Michael J. Fox’s autobiography Lucky Man, Bill dreamed of a career in horse racing. In his teens, Bill had served as a hotwalker (someone who walks racehorses to cool them down after they gallop) and an apprentice jockey in Vancouver. His love for horse racing was so strong that his left bicep had a tattoo of a racehorse ringed with roses, similar to a Kentucky Derby winner. But Bill recognized that he would have trouble earning a good living in the sport, so he joined Canada’s army as many Second World War veterans were returning to civilian life and leaving him with few job options.
That decision led to a vagabond lifestyle for Bill and Phyllis, who married in 1950, and five of their six children. (One son, Mark, the second-oldest child, died as an infant.)
Between 1950 and 1963, Michael wrote in his autobiography, the Foxes lived on six bases across Canada – including parts of Ontario, Calgary, Edmonton, where Michael was born in 1961, and Chilliwack, B.C., where Bill served two stints.
In 1968, Bill was transferred unexpectedly from Chilliwack to North Bay, Ont., where he worked at a then secret underground North American Air Defense (NORAD) installation – dubbed the Hole – that was designed to guard against a nuclear attack.
Upon their arrival in North Bay, the Foxes found that no military housing was available. They lived for part of that year in a tent at a lakeside campground and then found a permanent home in North Bay.
During their two-decade odyssey, Phyllis held various jobs while helping her kids adapt to different homes and schools. Bill retired from the Canadian Armed Forces in 1971 and the Foxes relocated from North Bay to Burnaby, where Phyllis began a long tenure as a bookkeeper with a cold storage company and he served as a police dispatcher.
Phyllis ramped up her fundraising efforts after Bill died in 1990 and Michael was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1991.
“She was always involved,” said Melody Hewitt, co-owner of a Me-n-Ed’s Pizza franchise in Burnaby, who was involved in charitable golf tournaments with Ms. Fox.
“Any time anybody needed her support for anything, her friends, her family – anything – she never said no to anybody.”
Vancouver-area Me-n-Ed’s pizzerias, popular hangouts for Michael, Phyllis and their family, sponsored the Michael J. Fox Theatre’s golf tournament for many years. In 2008, Me-n-Ed’s launched their own annual tournament with proceeds supporting Team Fox, which is the fundraising arm of Michael’s foundation, and the Parkinson’s Society of B.C.
Cris Florian, a Me-n-Ed’s Vancouver-region franchisor, said Ms. Fox, who was always “full of spunk and energy,” helped the tournament raise $350,000 altogether.
“She did not miss a year,” Ms. Florian said. “Even this last year, even though her health had declined a little bit, she still came out. Our guests, they would always e-mail me or call me and say, ‘Is Phyllis coming out? I want to see Phyllis.’ She just won the hearts of all our participants that came to the tournament.”
While Ms. Fox’s fundraising efforts were impressive, her devotion to family stood out even more, Mr. Morrey said.
“She was definitely the matriarch of the family as far as keeping them all together and doing things as a family,” he said.
He described her as an “old-style” mother.
“Even with Michael, as far as the stardom that he has, she didn’t ever tell anybody that she was Michael’s mother,” Mr. Morrey said. “People found out, but she never used that one way or the other.
“She just was a very close and a very loving mother.”
Phyllis Fox leaves her sons, Steven and Michael; daughters, Jackie and Kelli; 10 grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren and one great-great-granddaughter. Ms. Fox was predeceased by her son Mark, daughter Karen, husband, three brothers and a sister.
“We miss our mom terribly, of course, but we are holding each other up – as she would expect and want us to do,” Kelli Fox said.