Information about Bruce Willis

Bruce Willis
Willis at German premiere of Over the Hedge on June 28 2006.
Birth name	Walter Bruce Willis
Born	March 19 1955 (1955--) (age 52) Idar-Oberstein, Germany (U.S. Military Base)
Spouse(s)	Demi Moore (1987-2000)
Children	Rumer Willis (b.1988) Scout LaRue Willis (b.1991) Tallulah Belle Willis (b.1994)
Awards Emmy Awards Outstanding Lead Actor - Drama Series 1987 Moonlighting Outstanding Guest Actor - Comedy Series 2000 Friends Golden Globe Awards 1987 Moonlighting Golden Raspberry Awards Worst Actor 1998 Armageddon, Mercury Rising, and The Siege

Walter Bruce Willis (born March 19, 1955) is an American actor and singer. He came to fame in the late 1980s and has since retained a career as both a Hollywood leading man and a supporting actor, in particular for his role as John McClane in the Die Hard series. Willis was married to actress Demi Moore and they had three daughters before their divorce in 2000 after thirteen years of marriage. He has received multiple awards and honors throughout his career and has publicly shown his support for the United States armed forces. In various interviews, Willis has revealed his political opinions and interest in several conspiracy theories.

Motion pictures that feature him as a leading actor or supporting co-star, have grossed a total of $2.42^[1] to $2.88 billion^[2] at the North American box office, placing him as the sixth (as strictly lead) or the ninth highest-grossing movie star (counting supporting roles) of all time.

Early life

Willis was born in Idar-Oberstein, Germany to David Willis, an American soldier, and a Kassel-born German mother, Marlene, who worked in a bank.^[3] Willis was the oldest of four children (his siblings are Florence, David, and Robert). After being discharged from the military in 1957, Willis's father took his family back to Penns Grove, New Jersey, where he worked as a welder and factory worker.^[4] His parents separated in 1971 while Willis was in his early teens.^[3] He was always an outgoing youngster, although he grew up with a stutter.^[5] Finding it easy to express himself on stage and losing his stutter in the process, Willis began performing on stage and his high school activities were marked by such things as the drama club and school council president.^[6]

After graduating Penns Grove High School, Willis farmed sheep in a mining village in Alabama, transporting work crews at the DuPont Chambers Works factory in Deepwater, New Jersey. He decided to quit after a colleague was killed on the job, and thereafter became a regular at several bars. Willis also discovered an innate knack for playing harmonica and joined an R&B band called Loose Goose.^[6] After a stint as a private investigator (a role he plays in his 1991 film, The Last Boy Scout), Willis returned to his original passion of acting. He enrolled in the drama program at Montclair State University, where he was cast in the class production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Jack Prince as Big Daddy, William Applegate as the doctor, and Kevin J. Lynch as the Rev. Tooker. Willis left school during his junior year and moved to New York City.^[3]

Willis returned to the bar scene, only this time for a part-time job and as a way to meet New York celebrities. He is rumored to have been 'discovered' while working at the Museum Cafe on New York's Upper West Side. After countless auditions, Willis made his theater debut in the off-Broadway production of Heaven and Earth. He gained more experience and exposure in Fool for Love, a stint on television's Miami Vice, and in a Levi's commercial.^[3]

Career

Willis left New York City and headed to California to audition for several television shows.^[3] He auditioned for the TV series Moonlighting (1985–89), while competing against 3,000 other actors for the position and was selected to play David Addison Jr.^[6] The starring role helped to establish him as a comedic actor, with the show lasting five seasons. During the height of the show's success, beverage maker Seagram hired Willis as the pitchman for their Golden Wine Cooler products. The memorable ad campaign paid the rising star between five and seven million dollars over two years. In spite of that, Willis decided not renew his contract with the company when he decided to stop drinking in 1988.^[8] One of his first major film roles was in the 1987 Blake Edwards film "Blind Date" alongside Kim Bassinger and John Laroquette.

However, it was his then-unexpected turn in the film Die Hard that catapulted him to fame. He performed most of his own stunts in the film,^[9] and the film grossed $138,708,852 worldwide.^[10] Due to its box office success, the film would eventually tender three more sequels, with the most current film, Live Free or Die Hard, released in June 2007. He also provided his voice for a talking baby in Look Who's Talking and its sequel.

In the late-1980s, Willis enjoyed moderate success as a recording artist, recording an album of pop-blues entitled The Return of Bruno, which included the hit single "Respect Yourself",^[11] promoted by a Spinal Tap-like rockumentary parody featuring scenes of him performing at famous events including Woodstock. Follow-up recordings were not as successful, though Willis has returned to the recording studio several times.

In the early 1990s, Willis' career suffered a moderate slump starring in flops such as The Bonfire of the Vanities, Striking Distance and a film he co-wrote entitled Hudson Hawk, among others. However, in 1994 he had a supporting role in Quentin Tarantino's acclaimed Pulp Fiction, which gave a new boost to his career. In 1996, he was the executive producer of the cartoon Bruno the Kid which featured a CGI representation of himself.^[12] He went on to play the lead roles in Twelve Monkeys and The Fifth Element. However, by the end of the 1990s, his career had fallen into another slump with critically panned films like The Jackal, Mercury Rising, and Breakfast of Champions, saved only by the success of the Michael Bay-directed Armageddon which was the highest grossing film of 1998 worldwide.^[13] The same year his voice and likeness were featured in the PlayStation video game Apocalypse.^[14]

In 1999, Willis then went on to the starring role in M. Night Shyamalan's film, The Sixth Sense. The film was both a commercial and critical success and helped to increase interest in his acting career. He once had to appear in the hit sitcom Friends without pay, because he lost a bet to Matthew Perry, his co-star in The Whole Nine Yards and its sequel The Whole Ten Yards. He won a 2000 Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his work on Friends (in which he played the father of Ross Geller's much-younger girlfriend). He was also nominated for a 2001 American Comedy Award (in the Funniest Male Guest Appearance in a TV Series category) for his work on Friends. Willis was originally cast as Terry Benedict in Ocean's Eleven (2001) but dropped out to work on recording an album. In Ocean's Twelve (2003), he makes a cameo appearance as himself. He recently appeared in the Planet Terror half of the double feature Grindhouse as the villain, a mutant soldier. This marks Willis' second collaboration with director Robert Rodriguez, following Sin City.

Willis has appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman several times throughout his career. He filled in for an ill David Letterman on his show February 26, 2003, when he was supposed to be a guest.^[15] He interviewed Dan Rather in what he would later call "the most serious conversation of my entire life". On many of his appearances on the show, Willis stages elaborate jokes, such as wearing a day-glo orange suit in honor of the Central Park gates, having one side of his face made up with simulated buckshot wounds after the Harry Whittington shooting, or trying to break a record (parody of David Blaine) of staying underwater for only 20 seconds. On April 12, 2007, he appeared again, this time wearing a Sanjaya Malakar wig.^[16] His most recent appearance was on June 25, 2007 when he appeared wearing a mini-turbine strapped to his head to accompany a joke about his own fictional documentary entitled An Unappealing Hunch (a wordplay of An Inconvenient Truth).^[17]

Willis also appeared on Japanese Subaru Legacy television commercials,^[18] optimizing the car for sale, with the backing music of Jade from Sweetbox, "Addicted" and "Hate Without Frontiers". Tying in with this, Subaru did a limited run of Legacys, badged "Subaru Legacy Touring Bruce", in honor of Willis.

Willis has appeared in four movies with Samuel L. Jackson (National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1, Pulp Fiction, Die Hard with a Vengeance, and Unbreakable) and both actors were slated to work together in Black Water Transit before dropping out. Willis also worked alongside his eldest daughter, Rumer, in the 2005 film Hostage. In 2007, he recently finished the thriller Perfect Stranger, opposite Halle Berry, and marked his return to the role of John McClane in Live Free or Die Hard.

Upcoming films

With the third sequel to Die Hard, Live Free or Die Hard (Die Hard 4.0 outside North America) having been released in June 2007, Willis' future projects will include three other films that will debut between 2007 and 2009. The Last Full Measure is a drama film based on a true story about a Vietnam War veteran, and 2008's The Sophomore is a comedy where he will be a Catholic school principal and his real-life eldest daughter, Rumer, will star as a student investigating missing SAT scores.^[19] The 2009 film will be the drama Morgan's Summit, where he will depict a late night radio host who promotes kindness, but changes his demeanor after a brutal crime causes him to seek revenge.

Willis is also slated to play U.S. Army general William R. Peers in director Oliver Stone's Pinkville, a drama about the investigation of the 1968 My Lai massacre scheduled for release in 2009.

Personal life

At the premiere for the film Stakeout, Willis met actress Demi Moore who was dating actor Emilio Estevez at the time. Willis married Moore on November 21, 1987 and had three daughters (Rumer Glenn Willis (born 1988), Scout LaRue Willis (1991) and Tallulah Belle Willis (1994)) before the couple divorced on October 18, 2000. The couple gave no public reason for their breakup. Willis reacting on his divorce stated "I felt I had failed as a father and a husband by not being able to make it work" and credited actor Will Smith for helping him get through the divorce.^[3] Willis and Moore currently share custody of the three daughters they had during their thirteen-year union.^[3] Since their breakup, rumors persisted that the couple planned to re-marry, but Moore has since married the younger actor Ashton Kutcher. Willis has maintained a close relationship with both Moore and Kutcher. Since his divorce he has dated models Maria Bravo Rosado and Emily Sandberg and also was engaged to Brooke Burns, until they broke up in 2004 after dating for ten months.^[6] Recently, he has been spotted dating Playboy Playmates Tamara Witmer and Karen McDougal^[20] on different occasions. Willis has expressed interest in getting married again and having more children.^[3]

Bruce Willis was, at one point, Lutheran (specifically Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod); but no longer practices, based on a statement he made in the July 1998 issue of George magazine:



In early 2006, Willis, who usually lives in Los Angeles, moved into an apartment located in the Trump Tower in New York City.^[21] Willis also has a home in Malibu, California, a ranch in Montana, a beach home on Parrot Cay in the Turks and Caicos, and multiple properties in Sun Valley, Idaho.^[3][22]

Willis owns his own motion picture production company called Cheyenne Enterprises which he started with his business parter Arnold Rifkin in 2000.^[23] He also owns several small businesses in Hailey, Idaho including The Mint Bar and The Liberty Theater and is a co-founder of Planet Hollywood along with actors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone.^[24]

Willis, an avid New Jersey Nets fan, made controversial comments on April 29, 2007 during a live broadcast of a Nets home playoff game vs. the Toronto Raptors on TSN by saying a catch phrase from his Die Hard films, "Yipee-ki-yay motherfucker", at the end of the interview.^[25][26] Reacting to the backlash, he later blamed his actions on jet lag, stating: "Sometimes I overestimate my ability to function under duress with less than enough sleep".^[26]

On May 5, 2007, someone using the screen name "Walter_B" start posting detailed responses onto Ain't it Cool News, where people were discussing the fact that Live Free or Die Hard received a PG-13 rating, instead of an R rating like the earlier three Die hard films.^[27] The responses included detailed information on Live Free or Die Hard, which was yet to be released; the theme of the Die Hard film series, direct criticisms of other movie crews and casts, and many movie trivia answers. "Walter_B" was Bruce Willis himself, directly posting his opinions. Many people were skeptical that "Walter_B" was indeed Willis, but on May 9, Willis revealed his identity by using video chat via iChat on Apple MacOS X.^[28]

Political views

Willis was one of few Hollywood celebrities to publicly support the Iraq War in 2003, but in 2007 declared that he was more supportive of the troops instead of the war itself.^[29] He has endorsed every Republican presidential candidate except Bob Dole in 1996, because Dole had criticized Demi Moore for her role in the movie Striptease.^[29] Willis was an invited speaker at the 2000 Republican National Convention.^[30] Willis has attempted to play down his status as one of Hollywood's most outspoken Republicans, although he continues to vocally support gun ownership and other conservative policies. Generally he considers himself to be moderate (For example he has criticized the religious right and its influence on the Republican party.) In February 2006, Willis appeared in Manhattan to talk about his new movie 16 Blocks with reporters. One reporter attempted to ask Willis about his opinion on current events but was interrupted by Willis in mid-sentence:



In several June 2007 interviews, he declared that he still maintains some Republican ideologies but is currently an independent.^[3][26]

In 2006, he proposed that the United States should invade Colombia in order to end the drug trafficking.^[32] In several interviews with USA Weekend magazine, Willis has revealed that he supports large salaries for teachers, and reveals that he is disappointed in the United States' foster care and treatment of Native Americans.^[33] Willis also stated that he is a big supporter of gun rights:

"Everyone has a right to bear arms. If you take guns away from legal gun owners, then the only people who have guns are the bad guys." Even a pacifist, he insists, would get violent if someone were trying to kill him. "You would fight for your life."^[34]

Military interests

Throughout his film career, Willis has depicted several military characters in films such as The Siege, Hart's War, Tears of the Sun, and Grindhouse. Growing up in a military family, Willis has been publicly supportive of troops of the United States armed forces. In 2002, Willis's youngest daughter, Tallulah, suggested that Willis purchase Girl Scout cookies to send to troops. Willis purchased 12,000 boxes of cookies, and they were distributed to sailors aboard USS John F. Kennedy and other troops stationed throughout the Middle East at the time.^[35] In 2003, Willis visited Iraq as part of the USO tour, singing to the troops with his band, The Accelerators.^[36] Some reports from military officials suggest that Willis tried to enlist in the military to help fight the second Iraq war, but he was turned away because of his age.^[37][37] It was believed he offered $1 million to any civilian who turns in terrorist leaders Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, or (now the late) Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, however, in the June 2007 issue of Vanity Fair, he clarified that the statement was made hypothetically and not meant to be taken literally. Willis has also bashed the media for its coverage of the war, complaining that the press were more likely to focus on the negative aspects of the war:

Willis has said that he wants to "make a pro-war film in which American soldiers will be depicted as brave fighters for freedom and democracy."^[38] The film will follow members of Deuce Four, the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry, who spent considerable time in Mosul and were decorated heavily for it. The film is to be based on the writings of blogger Michael Yon, a former United States Army Special Forces Green Beret who was embedded with Deuce Four and sent regular dispatches about their heroics. Willis described the plot of the film as "these guys who do what they are asked for very little money to defend and fight for what they consider to be freedom."^[39]

Conspiracy theories

In an interview for the June 2007 issue of Vanity Fair, Bruce Willis reveals his skepticism that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of JFK, and suggests that some of the same criminals who killed Kennedy are still in power today.^[40]

Cultural references

In 1996, Roger Director, a writer and producer from Moonlighting wrote a roman à clef on Bruce Willis titled A Place to Fall.^[41] Cybill Shepherd wrote in her autobiography, Cybill Disobedience (2000) that Willis expressed his anger toward Roger Director, because the character was written as a "neurotic, petulant actor."

Filmography

Film roles

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1980	The First Deadly Sin	Man Entering Diner as Delaney Leaves	extra
1982	The Verdict	Courtroom Observer	extra
1985	A Guru Comes	Unknown role	extra
1987	Blind Date	Walter Davis
1988	The Return of Bruno	Bruno Radolini
	Sunset	Tom Mix
	Die Hard	John McClane	$5,000,000 salary[42]
1989	That's Adequate	Himself	cameo
	In Country	Emmett Smith
	Look Who's Talking	Mikey	voice
1990	Die Hard 2	John McClane	$7,500,000 salary[43]
	Look Who's Talking Too	Mikey	voice
	The Bonfire of the Vanities	Peter Fallow	$3,000,000 salary[43]
1991	Mortal Thoughts	James Urbanski
	Hudson Hawk	Eddie 'Hudson Hawk' Hawkins	also co-wrote plot and theme music
	Billy Bathgate	Bo Weinberg
	The Last Boy Scout	Joseph Cornelius 'Joe' Hallenbeck
1992	The Player	Himself	cameo
	Death Becomes Her	Dr. Ernest Menville
1993	National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1	John McClane	cameo
	Striking Distance	Tom Hardy
1994	North	Narrator
	Color of Night	Dr. Bill Capa
	Pulp Fiction	Butch Coolidge	$800,000 salary[43]
	Nobody's Fool	Carl Roebuck
1995	Die Hard with a Vengeance	John McClane
	Four Rooms	Leo	uncredited
	Twelve Monkeys	James Cole
1996	Last Man Standing	John Smith
	Beavis and Butt-head Do America	Muddy Grimes	voice
1997	The Fifth Element	Korben Dallas
	The Jackal	The Jackal
1998	Mercury Rising	Art Jeffries
	Armageddon	Harry S. Stamper	$20,000,000 salary plus percentage of profits[44]
	The Siege	Major General William Devereaux	$5,000,000 salary[29]
	Apocalypse	Trey Kincaid
1999	Franky Goes to Hollywood	Himself	Short subject
	Breakfast of Champions	Dwayne Hoover
	The Sixth Sense	Dr. Malcolm Crowe	$100,000,000 salary (includes salary, gross, & video revenue); highest earnings for any actor at the time[43][44]
	The Story of Us	Ben Jordan
2000	The Whole Nine Yards	Jimmy 'The Tulip' Tudeski
	The Kid	Russell Duritz	$20,000,000 salary[43]
	Unbreakable	David Dunn	$20,000,000 salary[43]
2001	Bandits	Joe Blake
2002	Hart's War	Col. William A. McNamara	$22,500,000 salary[43]
	Grand Champion	CEO	cameo
2003	Tears of the Sun	Lieutenant A.K. Waters
	Rugrats Go Wild!	Spike	voice
		William Rose Bailey	cameo
2004	The Whole Ten Yards	Jimmy 'The Tulip' Tudeski
	Ocean's Twelve	Himself	cameo
2005	Hostage	Jeff Talley	$25,000,000 salary
	Sin City	John Hartigan	$5,000,000
2006	Alpha Dog	Sonny Truelove
	16 Blocks	Jack Mosley	Producer, $20,000,000 salary
	Fast Food Nation	Harry Rydell
	Lucky Number Slevin	Mr. Goodkat	$7,000,000
	Over The Hedge	RJ	voice$15,000,000
2007	The Astronaut Farmer	The Colonel	uncredited
	Perfect Stranger	Harrison Hill	$15,000,000
	Grindhouse	Lt. Muldoon	$1,000,000
	Nancy Drew	Bruce	cameo
	Live Free or Die Hard	John McClane	$25,000,000+20% of all gross
2008	Assassination of a High School President	Principal	pre-production
2009	Morgan's Summit	---	pre-production
	Pinkville	William R. Peers	announced
	The Last Full Measure	William H. Pitsenbarger	announced

Television roles

Year(s)	Title	Role	Notes
1984	Miami Vice	Tony Amato	episode "No Exit"
1985	The Twilight Zone	Peter Jay Novins	episode "Shatterday"
1985-1989	Moonlighting	David Addison Jr.	67 episodes
1996-1997	Bruno the Kid	Bruno the Kid	voice
1997	Mad About You	Amnesia patient	episode "The birth part 2"
1999	Ally McBeal	Dr. Nickle	episode "Love Unlimited"
2000	Friends	Paul Stevens	three episodes
2002	True West	Lee	television movie
2005	That '70s Show	Vic	episode "Misfire"

Producer

Year	Title	Other notes
1988	Sunset	co-executive producer
2002		producer
2007	The Hip Hop Project	executive producer
	Live Free or Die Hard	producer

Discography

• Return of Bruno, 1987, Razor & Tie, OCLC 16657516
• If It Don't Kill You, It Just Makes You Stronger, 1989, Motown / Pgd, OCLC 21322754.
• Classic Bruce Willis: The Universal Masters Collection, 2001, Polygram Int'l, OCLC 71124889.

Awards and honors

Willis has won a variety of awards and has received various honors throughout his career in television and film.

• For his work on the television show Moonlighting he won an Emmy ("Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series") and a Golden Globe ("Best Performance by an Actor in a TV-Series - Comedy/Musical") plus received additional nominations for the show.^[46]
• In the 1999 drama/thriller film, The Sixth Sense, Willis won the Blockbuster Entertainment Award ("Favorite Actor - Suspense") and the People's Choice Award ("Favorite Motion Picture Star in a Drama") and was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Actor and received two nominations for the MTV Movie Awards for "Best Male Performance" and "Best On-Screen Duo".^[46]
• In February 2002, Willis was awarded the Hasty Pudding Man of the Year award from Harvard's Hasty Pudding Theatricals. According to the organization, the award is given to performers who give a lasting and impressive contribution to the world of entertainment.^[47]
• Also in 2002, Willis was appointed as national spokesman for Children in Foster Care by President George W. Bush.^[48] Willis wrote online: "I saw Foster Care as a way for me to serve my country in a system by which shining a little bit of light could benefit a great deal by helping kids who were literally wards of the government."^[37]
• In April 2006, he was honored by French government for his contributions to the film industry. Willis was named "Officier Dans L'ordre Des Arts Et Des Lettres" (Officer In The Order Of Arts And Letters) in a ceremony in Paris. The French Prime Minister stated "This is France's way of paying tribute to an actor who epitomizes the strength of American cinema, the power of the emotions that he invites us to share on the world's screens and the sturdy personalities of his legendary characters."^[50]
• On October 16, 2006, Willis was honored with a star of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The star is located at 6915 Hollywood Boulevard and it was the 2,321st star awarded in its history. Willis, reacting to his reception of the star, stated "I used to come down here and look at these stars and I could never quite figure out what you were supposed to do to get one...time has passed and now here I am doing this, and I'm still excited. I'm still excited to be an actor."^[51]
• In Tokyo, Japan, Willis was named honorary chief of the cyberterrorism task force by the National Public Safety Commission on June 12, 2007. Kensei Mizote, the head of the commission, told Willis to "lead the world to create a safer society."^[52]

References

External links

• BruceWillis.com (Way Back Machine) Official website - shutdown since Thanksgiving 2005. Link refers to the cached homepages of the site at Archive.org.
• BruceWillisPL.com - Bruce Willis photo gallery, active forum, and news
• Bruce Willis at the Internet Movie Database
• Bruce Willis at the Notable Names Database
• Bruce Willis at People.com
• Bruce Willis interview on The Tavis Smiley Show

Awards
Preceded by William Daniels for St. Elsewhere	Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor - Drama Series 1987 for Moonlighting	Succeeded by Richard Kiley for A Year in the Life
Preceded by Bill Cosby for The Cosby Show	1987 for Moonlighting	Succeeded by Dabney Coleman for The Slap Maxwell Story
Preceded by Mel Brooks for Mad About You	Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor - Comedy Series 2000 for Friends	Succeeded by Derek Jacobi for Frasier

Persondata
NAME	Willis, Bruce
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Willis, Walter Bruce
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Emmy Award-winning, Golden Globe-winning American actor and singer
DATE OF BIRTH	March 19, 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH	Idar-Oberstein, Germany (U.S. Military Base)
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH