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Quick Facts
- NAME: Bruce Willis
- OCCUPATION: Film Actor, Theater Actor, Television Actor
- BIRTH DATE: March 19, 1955 (Age: 58)
- EDUCATION: Montclair State University in New Jersey
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Idar-Oberstein, Germany
- Full Name: Walter Bruce Willison
- AKA: Bruce Willis
- AKA: Walter Willison
- Nickname: "Bruno"
- ZODIAC SIGN: Pisces
Best Known For
Bruce Willis first made a splash on TV in Moonlighting, costarring Cybill Shepherd, but his fame really grew with films such as Die Hard, The Sixth Sense and The Expendables.
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Play NowBruce Willis. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 03:14, May 25, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/bruce-willis-9533244.
Bruce Willis. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/bruce-willis-9533244 [Accessed 25 May 2013].
"Bruce Willis." 2013. The Biography Channel website. May 25 2013, 03:14 http://www.biography.com/people/bruce-willis-9533244.
"Bruce Willis," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/bruce-willis-9533244 [accessed May 25, 2013].
"Bruce Willis," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/bruce-willis-9533244 (accessed May 25, 2013).
Bruce Willis [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 May 25] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/bruce-willis-9533244.
Bruce Willis, http://www.biography.com/people/bruce-willis-9533244 (last visited May 25, 2013).
Bruce Willis. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/bruce-willis-9533244. Accessed May 25, 2013.
He didn't get the part, but in a decision that would prove to be incredibly smart, stuck around an extra day so that he could audition for a new romantic comedy called Moonlighting, set to debut the following March on ABC.
Big Break
As the story goes, Willis dressed in combat fatigues and, donning a punk haircut, read for the part of David Addison, a wise-cracking private investigator. He wowed the TV executives with his gregariousness and charming attitude to beat out some 3,000 other actors.
Co-starring Cybill Shepherd, the show revolved around the complicated, crime-solving duo of Maddie Hayes (Shepherd) and Addison, who ran a down-and-out Los Angeles private investigation firm, The Blue Moon Detective Agency.
The show, which aired until May 1989, was a huge hit for ABC and an even bigger launching pad for Willis. "Women find him appealing, and guys have a fantasy that they could be like him," ABC talent vice-president Gary Pudney told People magazine. "That's why he's become such a valuable commodity to us so quickly."
Action Hero
In 1987 he returned to film when he was matched with Kim Bassinger in the comedy, Blind Date. That same year, the actor hitched himself to a future of tabloid gossip when he married another star, Demi Moore. The couple, who divorced in 2000, have three children together: Rumer Willis (b. 1988), Scout LaRue Willis (b. 1991) and Tallulah Belle Willis (b. 1994).
The same year as the release of Blind Date, Willis, an avid blues fan and harmonica player, stepped into the music studio for Motown Records to record Return to Bruno, a collection of bluesy soul songs that produced a modest sales return.
If his music failed to turn him into the star he dreamed of being, his next film choice wouldn't. In the summer of 1988, Die Hard, an action-packed flick that cast Willis as the muscle-pumping hero, John McClane, hit movie screens across the country with a bang. Even before its release, the film had managed to catch some notice, in part because both Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger had turned down the McClane role. When movie executives settled on Willis, in part because he brought a level of warmth and humor to the character, they agreed to pay him $5 million, a huge sum for an actor many still considered a relative Hollywood novice.
The viewing public didn't care. With Willis doing his own stunts and whipping out memorable one-liners, Die Hard garnered an impressive $81 million at the domestic box office and later spawned three sequels. It was just the start for Willis, who in the ensuing decades has starred in films that have grossed more than $3 billion in ticket sales.
A year after Die Hard, Willis was at the wheel of another hit, and back in a full-on comedic role as the voice of Mikey, the ever-observant baby, in Look Who's Talking.
His role as the English tabloid journalist in Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) drew mixed reviews, and in 1991 the action movie Hudson Hawk, a vanity project of sorts, which Willis wrote and starred in, proved to be a box office failure.
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