Born March 19, 1955, on a military base in Idar-Oberstein, West Germany, to David (a welder/mechanic) and Marlene Willis. Upon his father’s retirement from the army the family moved back to PennsGrove, New Jersey.
Walter Bruce Willis, nickname Bruno, is the oldest of four children (brothers: Robert, David and sister, Flo) who had a stutter except on stage. Memorized lines were the key to great acting for this outgoing high schooler that joined the drama club and became president of the student counsel.
Straight out of high school he went to work for DuPont as a driver transporting work crews at a factory. This was short lived after a friend was killed on the job. He left DuPont to work at several bars as a bartender and at one point even worked as a bodyguard.
Willis made the decision go back to school attending Montclair State College launching his dream in the production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. By his junior year he left college going to New York to pursue an acting career. His bartending came in handy as he found it a way to connect with the moviemakers and his harmonica playing ability gave him an in with the music scene also.
Talent is something that Bruce possessed but it took endless auditions before he made his debut on Miami Vice (1984) he had appeared in three movies as un-credited stand ins. By the mid-eighties he was in full stride when he was hired for the TV movie Moonlighting (1985) with Cybill Shepard. Cybill, famous model, owned a tax-write off detective agency where Bruce Willis plays David Addison. Bruce persuades her that the detective business can make money, which leads to murder and mayhem and a tense un-admitted sexual attraction and high ratings. This pilot movie ran in to a four year TV series called Moonlighting.
His next movie was Blind Date (1987), which was Blake Edwards’s farce on blind dating, a comedy that stretched the limits to being almost not funny. That same year Willis had a Las Vegas wedding with actress Demi Moore (minister was Little Richard). Prior to his marriage to Moore he had been living with Sheri Rivera, the former wife of newscaster Geraldo Rivera.
Demi and Bruce were married thirteen years (divorced 2000) and had three girls during their marriage: Rumer Glenn, Scout LaRu and Tallulah Belle.
 |
 |
 |
 |
Go To Page: 1 2
