NAMES IN THE NEWS : Fox Fears the Dark Side of Fame

NEW YORK —  Although fame and fortune have brightened the future of Michael J. Fox, the “Back to the Future” actor does admit success has a dark side.

“After Rebecca Schaeffer was killed, people said, ‘Doesn’t that scare you?’ Of course it scares me,” Fox said, referring to the actress who was gunned down, allegedly by a disturbed fan.

“But I’m not lunatic about it,” Fox said in the Dec. 4 issue of People magazine. “We lock the doors like everybody else. But who wants to live in a cocoon?”

Last year, while Fox was shooting “Casualties of War” on location in Thailand, his wife, Tracy Pollan, began receiving threatening letters. The woman who allegedly wrote them is now in a California psychiatric facility awaiting trial on five counts of making terroristic threats.

“You can’t just shrug it off and say, ‘Well, I’m a celebrity. It comes with the territory,’ ” Fox said.

He said he has hired bodyguards, but added: “It’s key that you live as normal a life as possible. I don’t subscribe to the theory that you surround yourself with a phalanx of meat and guns.”