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Biography
In 2001, he swore blind that he'd never
again appear in an all-action, explosions a-go-go blockbuster, but Bruce
Willis had a hard time escaping his reputation as that genre's most
successful star. Indeed, since his first major cinematic hit, Die Hard,
many of us cannot witness a fiery onscreen detonation without imagining
Bruce - wide-eyed and panting in a grubby white vest - flying through
the air, arms and legs flailing frantically. He's just too damn good at
it. But, of course - being both a singing star, a restaurateur and an
arch comedian - there's been far more to his career than that.
Bruce Willis was born Walter Bruce Willis on on the 19th of March, 1955
in Idar-Oberstein, a German town near the border with Luxembourg. His
dad, David, being a military man, was stationed there and his wife,
Marlene, was from Kassel (they'd be divorced in 1971). On his discharge
in 1957, David took his family back to Carney's Point, New Jersey,
finding employment as a welder and a factory worker. Bruce, the oldest
of four children (he has a sister, Flo, and two brothers, one of whom,
David, is a movie producer), attended high school at Penn's Grove.
A popular fellow, he was elected Student
Council President and, strangely for a boy of such resolute blue-collar
pride, threw himself into drama classes. This was perhaps because,
tormented by a debilitating stutter, he discovered that he lost his
impediment when onstage. He was also a talented wrestler - that scar on
his shoulder now is actually the result of a serious sprain. Though a
good student, he was suspended for three months in his senior year for
taking part in what he later described as "the annual riot".
Upon leaving school, Bruce (nicknamed
Bruno) was expected to attend college but, keen to live as a normal
working-man, he instead took a job transporting work crews at the Du
Pont factory in nearby Deepwaters. This continued until a fellow driver
was killed on the job, and Bruce quit, later becoming a security guard
at a nuclear plant under construction. Already keen on music, and
kicking back in general, he hung out in bars and played harmonica in
R&B band Loose Goose.
Yet, despite his desire to be
"regular", he discovered that he missed acting and enrolled at
Montclair State College, where he leapt enthusiastically back into drama
classes, causing something of a stir with his performance in Cat On A
Hot Tin Roof. Eager to forge a career, he'd skip classes to attend
auditions in New York City - eventually dropping out altogether and
taking an apartment in Hell's Kitchen, much closer to the action. He
would for some months share his lowly abode with another aspiring actor,
Linda Fiorentino.
Still working to pay the bills, Bruce got himself a job tending bar at
Café Central, a trendy media hang-out, and sought parts in plays, shows
and ads. He made his off-Broadway debut in 1977 in Heaven And Earth and
nabbed uncredited roles in The First Deadly Sin (where he also stood in
for the killer in long-shots) and Sidney Lumet's excellent Prince Of The
City and Paul Newman-starring The Verdict. Then it all began to happen.
He was a hit onstage in Sam Shepard's Fool For Love and scored a sweet
role as wife-beating gun-runner Tony Amato in the massive hit show Miami
Vice. He also appeared in Hart To Hart and, dead cool in his natty
shades, in the first TV ad for Levi 501 Blues plus, along with the
then-unknown Sharon Stone, another ad for a Seagrams Wine Cooler.
But this was just a taster. Now real stardom arrived, though not in the
way he expected. Flying off to LA, he auditioned for a part in Madonna's
Desperately Seeking Susan, but was rejected. Being as he was in town, he
checked out the other auditions taking place - one of which was for a
new ABC show to be named Moonlighting. Willis found himself up against
3000 other hopefuls in the race to star alongside Cybill Shepherd as the
smooth, wisecracking David Addison. And, being as that was him to a tee,
he won over the producer, who cast him despite protests from ABC - the
company preferring a name actor in the role.
Screened from 1985 to 1989, the show was an enormous success, with
private eyes Addison and Shepherd's Maddie Hayes flirting, fighting and
solving improbably complex crimes with great aplomb. On-set, the stars'
relationship was far more fraught, their in-fighting becoming legendary
and Willis picking up an unwanted reputation for "being
difficult". But Bruce, ever ambitious despite his easy-going
persona, was looking beyond the world of TV. He used his breaks from
Moonlighting to star in two movies by Blake Edwards (famed Pink Panther
director). First was Blind Date, with Kim Basinger, an excellent
slapstick caper that was outrageously panned. Then came Sunset, the tale
of two ageing cowboys solving a crime in Hollywood, where Willis played
Tom Mix to James Garner's Wyatt Earp - it was another relative flop.
1987 saw everything turn around. For a
start, Bruce met his future wife, Demi
Moore, at the premiere of Stakeout, a cop comedy starring her
then-boyfriend Emilio Estevez. He also became an international singing
star, getting his funk out and crashing the charts with the hit LP, The
Return Of Bruno, a collection of Motown-type material, including a cover
of Respect Yourself. This would be followed by a second LP, If It Don't
Kill You, It Just Makes You Stronger. The Bruno connection was continued
with the comedy rockumentary, also titled Return Of Bruno, where Willis
played the supposedly super-influential Bruno Radolini, paid onscreen
homage by the likes of Elton John, Phil Collins and Gene Simmons.
Winning an Emmy and a Golden Globe for Moonlighting, it couldn't get
much better for Bruce. Then it did. Directed by John McTiernan and
filmed by Jan De Bont (who went on to direct Speed and Twister), Die
Hard was a word-of-mouth smash that took everyone by surprise. As
Detective John McClane, thwarting Alan Rickman in his villainous attempt
to hijack a skyscraper, Willis redefined the role of the action hero. A
slightly shabby smartarse, struggling in life and love, he was panicked,
vulnerable and constantly on the edge of failure - yet somehow won
through against impossible odds. Willis then hit big again, this time
providing wise-ass put-downs for a new-born babe, in Look Who's Talking.
Now began a difficult period in Willis's career. Never content to sit
comfortably in a single genre, he now played a traumatized Vietnam vet
in Norman Jewison's In Country, and appeared in another mockumentary,
this time the movie industry-based That's Adequate. More hits followed
with the sequels to Die Hard and Look Who's Talking, but suddenly
Willis's career became a rollercoaster of the genuinely sickening
variety. Starring alongside Tom
Hanks in Brian De Palma's adaptation of Tom Wolfe's Bonfire Of The
Vanities, he was involved in one of the most expensive and critically
reviled disasters in film history.
Quickly he redeemed himself with Tony
Scott's superior action flick The Last Boy Scout, but then it got even
worse with Hudson Hawk. Based on a story by Willis himself (he also
wrote the title song), it concerned a super-burglar taking on his last
big job - "big job" being an apt description of the whole
movie, according to crits and public alike. It went down like the
proverbial lead zeppelin.
With all the stories of financial catastrophe flying around, it was
understandable that most people missed out on the fact that the early
Nineties also saw Willis deliver two of his finest performances.
Alongside wife Demi in Alan Rudolph's excellent Mortal Thoughts, he was
fantastic, and wholly out-of-character, as a mean-spirited bully. Then
there was Billy Bathgate, a dodgy Mob movie starring Dustin Hoffman,
wherein Willis shone as a slick rival gangster eventually consigned to
the bottom of the river, concrete Hush Puppies and all.
No one seemed to notice. Bruce struggled
on through the Meryl Streep comedy Death Becomes Her, the enjoyable but
mostly ignored Striking Distance, a bit part in The Player, and an
uncredited role in Loaded Weapon, but his career seemed to be fast
spiralling downwards. Until the intervention of someone who most
definitely had seen both Mortal Thoughts and Billy Bathgate - videohound
Quentin Tarantino. Willis thought his part in Pulp Fiction would be tiny
but it grew to spread throughout the movie. As boxer Butch Coolidge, he
charmingly comforted lover Maria de Medeiros, heroically saved Ving
Rhames from the Gimp and his rapist buddies, blew John Travolta to
smithereens AND got away scot-free. It was a superb performance - Bruce
was BACK.
And, being Bruce, he refused to make it easy on himself. He played a man
in a pink bunny-suit in Rob Reiner's North, appeared alongside Newman
again in the low-key Nobody's Fool, and went all arty in Four Rooms. He
played a possibly lunatic time-traveller in Terry Gilliam's tremendous
12 Monkeys, and hit pay-dirt once more in Die Hard III. He seemed to
have hit a plateau where he could do much as he liked, keeping his
profile high with the occasional blockbuster and his involvement, along
with Schwarzenegger and Stallone
in the Planet Hollywood restaurant chain.
Then the wheels came off again, slowly this time. Walter Hill's Last Man
Standing was a superior update of Kurosawa's Yojimbo with Willis
suitably shady in the lead role, but it made no money. Next came a
series of mediocre action flicks in The Jackal, The Siege and Mercury
Rising, and the superficial, Gaultier-spoiled sci-fi oddity The Fifth
Element. Willis's standing as a Hollywood big cheese and a guarantee of
vast financial returns was in terrible danger. When Disney pulled the
plug on his next project, Broadway Brawler, word was that Willis was
finished. In fact, the only good press he got was for taking his clothes
off on the David Letterman Show in order to publicize his wife's
miserable Striptease.
Amazingly, this latest disaster proved to be the launch-pad to Bruce's
greatest success yet. Stripped of his Broadway Brawler responsibilities,
he took the lead in space-pic Armageddon, leading a motley band charged
with saving us all from an onrushing meteor. It was a $200 million hit.
It seemed the guy was charmed. Now taking the lead in a film that ought
to have been a mere cult oddity carried by his name alone, Willis took a
$20 million fee AND a hefty percentage. And, as supernatural thriller
The Sixth Sense out-did even Armageddon, he found himself raking in
upwards of $100 million, smashing Tom
Hanks record for Forrest Gump.
It just got better and better. Having
starred alongside Matthew
Perry in The Whole Nine Yards, as a favor to his newfound buddy he
appeared in Friends as Paul Stevens, the disapproving father of Ross
Geller's (too-) young girlfriend. Handing his fee over to various
charities, he walked off with another Emmy. Then came another massive
screen hit, Unbreakable, once more with Sixth Sense director M. Night
Shalamayan. Now Willis was bigger than ever, even becoming the first
star to lend his face and body-movements to a videogame star, appearing
as Trey Kincaide in the hit Apocalypse.
It wasn't all good news. With Demi
Moore, Willis had had three daughters - Rumer, Scout Larue and
Tallulah Belle - but his 12 year marriage, deemed by many to be the
strongest in Tinseltown, ended in 2000 (Bruce would subsequently buy a
house five miles north of the family home in Hailey, Idaho). He also
lost his position as Seagrams spokesman after being caught for drunk
driving. And then there was Planet Hollywood, which filed for bankrupcy
reorganisation, closed numerous branches and submitted to a major
restructuring. Stepping back into music, Bruce toured Europe in order to
revive interest in the burger chain. Re-bitten by the boogie bug, he'd
turn down a part in Ocean's Eleven in order to concentrate on a new LP,
his part being taken by Andy Garcia. He'd also help set up a new label,
the Uptop Music Corporation, dedicated to releasing acts by marginalised
artists like Aaron Neville's son Ivan.
Attempting to spread his wings a little, Bruce followed Unbreakable with
a string of more testing projects. First he returned to comedy,
alongside Billy
Bob Thornton and Cate Blanchett in the heist romp Bandits. Then came
Hart's War, the first of consecutive big screen military dramas. Here Colin
Farrell was assigned to defend a black officer accused of murdering
a white racist in a POW camp during WW2. As senior officer Colonel
William McNamara, Willis appears offensively uninterested - but then
perhaps he has something equally heroic on the go.
After appearing in a filmed stage version of Sam Shepard's True West
(writer of Bruce's stage breakthrough), recorded at the Liberty Theatre
in Hailey, Idaho, where he was a small-time crook trying to ingratiate
his way into the film business, came another war drama, Tears Of The
Sun. Here he led a troop of Navy SEALS into a Nigerian war zone to
rescue several US nationals. Doctor Monica
Bellucci, however, refuses to leave without her patients so Bruce,
after a surprising change of heart, decides to lead them all to safety
through a particularly dangerous stretch of jungle. It was a tough role
as much of the movie's true drama - the sacrificing of innocent lives,
the disobeying of orders, the risking of his own men - had to be played
out on Willis's own face. Once again, he proved himself more than able.
Returning to comedy, Bruce reprised his
role as Jimmy The Tulip in a sequel to The Whole Nine Yards, this time
rescuing the bumbling Matthew Perry from a gang of Hungarian kidnappers.
2005 would see a string of new releases (as well as a string of musical
dates in Las Vegas). First would come Hostage, where he played an LA
hostage negotiator who suffers a terrible professional experience and
moves to less challenging climes.
Unfortunately, he gets involved in
another hostage crisis, one complicated by the fact that his own wife
and kid have been simultaneously kidnapped, with a ransom demand that
turns the original job into a nightmare. It was gloomy fare, but
ingenious and, despite Willis's claims that he'd never return to action
movies, it was action-packed. The film would also see the debut of
Bruce's daughter, Rumer.
Also gloomy, but far more ingenious would be Robert Rodriguez's visually
stunning Sin City, based on the graphic novels of Frank Miller. This was
set in a seedy, violent noir-world, where the stories of several
tortured denizens collided. Bruce would play John Hartigan, a cop jailed
for a crime he didn't commit, who discovers on his release that the girl
he was protecting when first framed is now being menaced by an utter
psycho. Joining him in a truly stellar cast would be Mickey Rourke,
Clive Owen and Josh Hartnett.
Willis then moved on to Alpha Dog, written and directed by Nick
Cassavetes and based on the real-life story of Jesse James Hollywood. He
was a young drug dealer who, inspired by his vagabond father, managed to
buy himself a $200,000 house at the age of 19 but then blew everything
when he kidnapped and killed the 15-year-old brother of a client who
owed him $1500, being then forced to go on the run. Alpha Dog, which
would also feature pop star Justin Timberlake and Bruce's old Seagram's
advertising buddy Sharon Stone, would see Willis play the charismatic
father, whose buccaneering attitude to crime saw his son go wrong.
Filmed in late 2004, it would be close to release when Hollywood was
finally caught after a 4-year search by the FBI, hiding out in Brazil.
Oddly, just as he was being deported back to the States, his father
would be busted on suspicion of drug possession.
Next up would come more noir with a role in Lucky Number Sleven, where
Bruce's Sin City co-star Josh Hartnett became embroiled in a savage New
York turf war between Jewish and Afro-American gangs led by Ben Kingsley
and Morgan
Freeman respectively. Then Willis would replace Jim
Carrey as the voice of a con-artist racoon in the animation Over The
Hedge, where forest animals attempted to resist the lure of encroaching
suburbia. And, unarguably proving the foolishness of that "no more
action movies" quote, there'd be Die Hard 4.0, written by hostage
scribe Doug Richardson, who pictured John McClane, now retired, teaming
with his daughter to battle terrorists in the Caribbean.
Having been paid $22.5 million for Hart's
War, as well as huge sums for The Whole Ten Yards and Hostage, Bruce
Willis remains right up there with Tom
Cruise at the top of the A-list. Fair enough, considering his movies
have taken far in excess of $2 billion at the box-office. Also, the
publicity surrounding his private life has seldom been more
frantic.
Having dated Spanish model Maria Bravo
Rosado, he'd also be connected to porn star Alisha Klass, actress
Estella Warren and Czech model Eva Jasanovska, on top of a series of
scurrilous reports claiming he'd helped bring an end to Monica
Bellucci's marriage.
2004 would see him end a 10-month
relationship with actress Brooke Burns, a Baywatch babe 23 years his
junior. Meanwhile, his ex-wife Demi
Moore was doing her bit to keep Bruce in the tabloids, with Willis
often turning up alongside Moore, their kids and Moore's toy-boy lover
Ashton Kutcher,
Nearly 20 years of massive fame, and still going strong. Not bad at all
for a stuttering van-driver called Walter. ~ Dominic Wills
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