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"There are many winding paths a man can follow to greatness. He could build an orphanage, or perhaps write a symphony. But there is only one man in the history of history to have achieved greatness by screaming 'yipee-ki-yay, motherfucker' and pushing Professor Snape out of a window. That man was this man."

Walter Bruce Willis (born March 19, 1955) is a retired American actor, producer and blues musician known for his smirk and manliness.

Willis was born in Idar-Oberstein, West Germany, as the son of David Willis, an American soldier, and Marlene, a German banker mother, giving Willis dual citizenship of both Germany and the United States. After being discharged from the military in 1957, his father relocated the family to his hometown of Carneys Point, New Jersey. Willis, who spoke with a stutter, showed an early interest in acting during his time in high school, as he discovered that it reduced his stuttering, joining up with the local school drama club.

His interest lasted after graduating high school in 1973, as he drifted between temporary jobs in his native New Jersey, including doing stints as a security guard and a private investigator. He eventually enrolled in the Drama Program at Montclair State University, where he was cast in a production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. He then moved to New York City in 1977, where he mostly worked as a bartender while appearing in bit parts in stage productions and television shows throughout the early 1980s. His breakthrough as an actor, however, came in the form of the popular comedy/drama/mystery series Moonlighting; during the show's run, he was also hired to do wine cooler commercials.

Willis' big break came in 1988 when he played the resourceful, smoking, snarky NYPD officer John McClane in the thriller Die Hard. People were at first surprised and skeptical when they heard of his casting, since he was mostly known as a funny guy, as well as that annoying guy from those wine cooler commercials. Playing McClane with a mix of humor and sympathy in addition to performing most of his own stunts, Willis proved he had the chops as a serious action star, and Die Hard was a hit that jump-started a blockbuster franchise.

In many of his action movies, Willis is the king of the heroic comeback, and usually has one scene where the bad guys work him over badly, only for him to come back in the final reel and win out. This was perhaps best codified in 1994's Pulp Fiction, in which he plays a down-and-out boxer who bets the money he took to take a fall on himself and earns himself a very bizarre day, only to come through in the end and ride off into the future on a chopper with his girl by his side. It's also worth noting that the ending of Willis' story arc is also technically the end of the movie itself, at least as far as the strict continuity of events is concerned.

After Die Hard, Willis had a healthy film career throughout the 1990s and going into the 2000s, alternating between action, comedy, and even straight-up drama. However, by the late 2010s, he primarily appeared in direct-to-video action films, taking on few mainstream roles. By 2022, his habit of showing up for a day or two of filming on a no-budget action movie became so notorious that the Razzies created a special category called "Worst Bruce Willis Performance in a 2021 Movie" with eight nominations.note 

In his more successful days, Willis co-founded the Planet Hollywood restaurant alongside fellow action movie titans Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. Appropriately, all three shared the big screen for the first time in 2010's The Expendables. Although Willis ended up being an Advertised Extra and Schwarzenegger merely had an uncredited cameo in this movie, they had much larger roles in the 2012 sequel that were call-backs to their film personas.

He's often dubbed by Mario Castañeda for Latin American Spanish releases of his films, and was almost always dubbed by Patrick Poivey on European French releases (a notable exception being The Fifth Element) until his death in 2020. His signature voice in Brazilian Portuguese was Newton da Matta until his death in 2006, with the second most frequent being Leonardo Camillo, who sounds uncannily like da Matta.

On March 30, 2022, several members of Willis' family posted on social media that he would be "stepping away from the career that has meant so much to him" due to him having recently been diagnosed with aphasia, a language-processing disorder that impacted his acting abilities. Rumors of him having memory loss had been circulating in the industry for years, and the response led the aforementioned Razzies to rescind the award they gave him a week prior to the announcement out of respect. On February 16, 2023, nearly a year after his aphasia diagnosis went public, Willis' family announced that his condition has progressed into frontotemporal dementia.

Willis was married to Demi Moore from 1987 to 2000, having three daughters with her, including Rumer Willis.

Before and following his success on Die Hard, Willis had a brief but mildly successful stint as a pop singer, most notably under the persona of Bruno. He also once attempted to murder the Gorillaz.


Notable Roles:

Film

Discography:

  • The Return Of Bruno (1987) (included one Top-10 hit with a remake of The Staple Singers' "Respect Yourself")
  • If It Don't Kill You, It Just Makes You Stronger (1989)

Video Games:

Television Series

Producer Credits:

Tropes associated with him include:

  • Amicable Exes: He and Demi Moore divorced in 2000 but remained close and on very good terms, they became a pop culture shorthand for a divorced couple that could be in the same room. They even lived together with their daughters during the first quarantine lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic, and Demi became good friends with Bruce's new wife and their daughters and played a huge role in helping out after his aphasia diagnosis.
  • Bald Head of Toughness: Starting with Unbreakable, most of his roles embraced his baldness, a look that only helped his action hero credentials. It even became a joke that if he wasn't donning a hairpiece for a film, it was a sign of confidence and commitment to the work from him.
  • Catchphrase:
    • "Yippee-ki-yay!" in Die Hard, of course.
    • He has played at least three different characters who say, "Wrong answer!"
  • Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: The comic book The Ultimates redesigned Hawkeye after Willis' likeness.
  • Contractual Obligation Project: Armageddon, The Sixth Sense and The Kid were part of a three-picture contract with Disney he had to take on, following his derailment of the planned movie Broadway Brawler, which got cancelled 20 days into production after Willis fired the director. Since $28 million had already been spent, Willis took a significant cut in salary for Armageddon so Disney could cover the losses on the now-cancelled film.
  • Cool Old Guy: Up until his aphasia diagnosis, he still managed to do action roles in his sixties.
  • Deadpan Snarker: His characters tend to have a very dry sense of humor and always have a quip handy, especially when in danger.
  • "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Sang the theme song for his animated kids' show Bruno the Kid.
  • Doing It for the Art: He was one of the first major stars to take a huge pay cut to do more challenging and artistically fulfilling projects, most notably in 12 Monkeys and Nobody's Fool.
  • Dull Surprise: Sadly, due to his aphasia diagnosis, his performances towards the end of his career came across as phoned-in.
  • The Everyman: A central part of his appeal, especially with Die Hard, was that Bruce looked, sounded, and acted just like a regular guy who got caught up in extraordinary scenarios and who viewers could relate to rather than an invincible, ridiculously muscular action star.
  • Male Frontal Nudity: He has done quite a few naked appearances in movies, although most of the time it's only visible in Freeze-Frame Bonus.
  • Middle Name Basis: His real first name is Walter. It's unclear why he chose to go by his middle name but it's suggested that it comes from his childhood nickname "Bruno".
  • Mister Seahorse: Bruce parodied his then-wife Demi Moore's nude pregnant-belly cover shot on Vanity Fair by also posing naked with a pregnant belly in the same fashion for the September 1991 issue cover of Spy magazine.
  • Money, Dear Boy: The final stretch of his career had rare theatrical releases and many direct-to-video/streaming movies where he was an Advertised Extra. Once his illness-related retirement was announced, it was clear that those easy paychecks were Willis working while he still could to get money for a comfortable retirement and medical treatments and with the limited involvement not straining his weakened mental state.
  • Older Than He Looks: Besides the fact that he's bald, he looks like he can still pass for being in his late 40s despite being in his early to mid-sixties.
  • Production Posse: He's done four films with M. Night Shyamalan.
  • Stutter Stop: He had a stutter when he was younger and was drawn to acting after performing a monologue on stage and noticed he didn't stutter once.
  • Tom Hanks Syndrome: He started out as a comedy actor before being best known for action films.
  • Younger and Hipper: His big break, John McClane in the Die Hard films, was a huge example of this. In Nothing Lasts Forever, the novel the film was based on, Joe Leland (the McClane equivalent) is no-nonsense, uncool, tight-assed, and around twice Willis's age at the time he did that film; in fact, the film was intended to have the lead role played by a then-73-year-old Frank Sinatra (though that was more the result of a Contractual Obligation Project). The casting of Bruce Willis, fresh from Moonlighting, forced the scriptwriters to overhaul the character completely to fit Willis's acting style.


 
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