A Little Star Power Goes a Long Way to Fight Disease

At Parkinson.org, the official Web site for the National Parkinson Foundation, two stories have equal prominence.

One is about a new experimental drug that may slow, or even prevent, nerve-cell death in the brains of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s patients. The other announces that Dick Clark will be the host of the foundation’s International Gala for Hope in March.

When it comes to fighting disease, celebrity sells.

When “Spin City” star Michael J. Fox announced last week that he would leave the hit ABC sitcom at the end of this season, he said he wanted to lessen the strain of working on a weekly TV series and devote more time to battling Parkinson’s disease. In 1998, Fox, now 38, announced that he suffers from the as-yet-incurable disease, a chronic neurological condition that can cause tremors, limb stiffness and balance problems.

The story made local and national news shows, topped “Entertainment Tonight” and “Access Hollywood” for several days and even became a focus of Sunday’s Golden Globes coverage. Whatever he does in the future, Fox already has hijacked the media spotlight for a good cause, and that means more donations of public and private money for more research.

In recent months alone, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf testified before Congress about prostate cancer, talk-show host Montel Williams disclosed he has multiple sclerosis, 1996 GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole became a national spokesman for erectile dysfunction, and Nancy Reagan discussed the pain of her husband’s Alzheimer’s. Christopher Reeve provided updates on his struggle with paralysis at the National Press Club; Morton Downey Jr. took his anti-smoking crusade to “Larry King Live”; and Jerry Lewis ran another record-breaking telethon for muscular dystrophy.

“It helps on all diseases,” said Larry Hoffheimer, who runs the National Parkinson Foundation’s Washington office and has coordinated Capitol Hill visits by celebrity Parkinson’s patients such as Fox and Muhammad Ali.

“Celebrities have traditionally brought public attention to issues they’ve been concerned with. With regard to National Institutes of Health funding, Michael J. Fox was very influential and moving when he testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee,” Hoffheimer said. “Does it help? Yes, it does. . . . People are moved by the stories of people they respect.”

Reeve’s urgings helped convince President Clinton and Congress to appropriate more than $50 million for research into spinal-cord issues. The Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation actually merged with the American Paralysis Assn. last year, and Reeve has helped raise millions of dollars both from average Americans and at gala fund-raisers.

“Can a celebrity invoke a cure? No, but it can’t hurt,” said Adrian Havill, who wrote the 1996 biography “Man of Steel: The Career and Courage of Christopher Reeve.”

“When Reeve directed ‘In the Gloaming,’ he made the interview rounds and spent half the time talking about his movie and half the time talking about the progress he’s making.

“He gets to campaign on an issue he cares about and he gets to keep his name in front of the public. Someone like Morton Downey Jr., that’s become a way to get himself publicity.”

And Hollywood can be just that cynical, said Burt Kearns, who saw the publicity machine up close as the executive producer of both “A Current Affair” and “Hard Copy,” syndicated magazine-style shows.

The story about Fox and Parkinson’s, Kearns said, was broken by the tabloids during the early ‘90s, and then continually denied by Fox’s publicists until they couldn’t deny it anymore. Then they carefully spun the announcement in People magazine in December 1998.