Bruce Willis had an amazing career before announcing his retirement in March 2022, but
it also certainly had its low points.
Why was Willis in so many direct-to-video releases?
And why was his Broadway debut such a flop?
This is Bruce's tragic real-life story.
Action movies aren't generally known for their dialogue, but Bruce Willis can make any line memorable.
So when he revealed his history with stuttering, his story was both surprising and poignant.
At the American Institute for Stuttering's 2016 fundraising gala — where he was being
honored — Willis gave a tearful speech about learning to speak through acting and the bullying
he had to endure as a child.
His stutter began when he was 6 years old, and unable to communicate to family and friends,
he said he would have to resort to, quote, "just flailing wildly."
"No plan.
No help.
Just flailing wildly."
According to John Parker's "Bruce Willis: The Unauthorized Biography," it sometimes
took Willis three minutes just to form a sentence.
In high school, Willis was laughed at during speeches, and he positioned himself as the
class clown in order to fit in.
In a story fit for Hollywood, Willis' began to conquer his speech impediment once he discovered
acting.
He tested out acting at his school and his local YMCA and realized that he could control
his stutter when he embodied a character on stage.
He finally sought professional help when a drama professor at Montclair State College
encouraged him to see a speech therapist.
In 1986, Willis was a spokesperson for Seagram's wine coolers.
At the time, Willis was mainly known for his role on the show "Moonlighting," and "Die
Hard" was months away from being released.
He was paid a reported $5-to-7 million for the Seagram's job, which included a few commercials
— one with a young Sharon Stone.
"It's wet.
It's dry.
It's new.
And it's Seagram's."
"You sound like a commercial."
But it came to an end when he was arrested for a DUI.
He was fired from the Seagram's gig after it was discovered that he sought treatment
for alcohol abuse, according to "The Advertising Age: Encyclopedia of Advertising," though
there are conflicting reports that say Willis decided to quit the job.
During a 2013 interview with GQ, Willis revealed that he was comfortable drinking again once
he realized he wasn't going to run himself "off the pier of life with alcohol," in his
own words, and he admits to having a glass of wine with meals.
In 2001, Willis was rehearsing Sam Shepard's play "True West" in Idaho when he learned
of his younger brother Robert's pancreatic cancer diagnosis.
He then took trips between Idaho and Robert's home in Massachusetts.
At the time, People magazine reported that Willis took a break from acting in order to
take care of his brother and purchased him a home.
Robert passed away only six weeks later, and the national telecast of "True West" was dedicated
to his memory.
In 2002, Willis told The U.K.
Sun that he used a medium to contact his brother in the afterlife.
Willis said that the medium began speaking
in his brother's voice and cursing just like him.
The experience made Willis cry, and his views on the afterlife changed.
He told the tabloid,
"Tears rolled down my face and now I know the switch is not turned off, that there is
life after death.
I don't know how it works, but I believe it."
In an interview with the Guardian, Willis revealed that an accident on the set of "Die
Hard" left him partially deaf in his left ear.
Rumer Willis, Willis' eldest daughter, elaborated on her father's condition in a 2013 interview
with WENN, saying his hearing loss is due to a scene when "he shot a gun off next to
his ear."
She also said it affects his ability to do interviews.
Willis had received criticism for appearing uninterested and awkward during interviews.
Prior to being diagnosed with aphasia in 2022, his demeanor was attributed to jet-lag and
a lack of interest in the movies he promoted, but Rumer suggested he just couldn't hear
the questions.
But Willis would experience worse on-set conditions while filming 2003's "Tears of the Sun."
Willis was struck on the head during a pyrotechnics explosion, which led him to sue the production
studio and a special effects worker a year later, according to the Guardian.
The lawsuit claimed that he suffered "extreme mental, physical, and emotional pain," required
medical attention on set, and would require further treatment in the future.
"You…
go see the medic."
"Aye, captain."
Bruce Willis and Demi Moore were once one of Hollywood's most prominent power couples.
They met at a movie premiere in 1987, and Moore's date for the event, Emilio Estevez,
grew jealous at the way Willis looked at her, according to Showbiz Cheatsheet.
They tied the knot that same year in a wedding that was officiated by singer Little Richard.
It was the start of a romance that carried them for 20 years together and yielded three
children, but it all ended in 2000.
"I just look at our marriage like 'The Sixth Sense.'
You were dead the whole time!"
Moore wrote in her 2019 autobiography "Inside Out" that their marriage became strained due
to philosophical differences.
Moore was a working mother with a successful career, and Willis longed for a more traditional
dynamic, where he was the breadwinner and Moore would stay home with their children.
Their views clashed when Moore was offered a role in a film that would've taken her away
from home.
Meanwhile, Willis had to be on site in Europe for his film "Hudson Hawk."
Perhaps desiring more stability at home, he told her he no longer wanted to be married.
However, she also credits his request for a divorce to a desire for more freedom.
Willis had a more simplistic answer for their split: "Things change."
In an interview with Rolling Stone in 2000, Willis explained that their public-facing
marriage was also difficult to maintain and, quote, "was under a huge magnifying glass
all the time."
The 1991 box-office bomb "Hudson Hawk" was quite the departure from what made Bruce Willis
a megastar.
Willis invested much of himself into the production — the film boasts his only writing credit.
In an interview, the film's screenwriter, Steven E. de Souza, said that Willis "took
over the whole movie" and started re-writing the script.
It was also based on an idea that Willis had developed for 12 years.
In the media, Willis was portrayed as a large personality that made the production effort
difficult.
An anonymous crew member told the New York Times that Willis made it clear that he was
in charge on set, leading to disagreements between him and the director, Michael Lehmann.
Willis had a lot riding on the movie's success — namely, his reputation as a bankable film star.
He used the film to prove his comedy chops, which until then were largely limited to "Moonlighting."
The movie combined screwball comedy and action to form something that didn't jive well with
a lot of viewers; it made only $17 million despite a $70 million budget.
Most of Bruce Willis' recent films have been direct-to-video productions with Willis in
glorified cameos so that his name can be used in press releases and on the film poster.
It's called the "geezer teaser" genre — a marketing ploy by obscure movie productions
that hire film stars past their prime but whose names still hold weight.
Stars used in this formula are well compensated but are never used substantially in those
films, according to Vanity Fair.
In those movies, Willis' scenes are placed at the beginning so that audiences are duped
into thinking he's a primary character.
Willis only has seven minutes of screen time in "Hard Kill," nine minutes in "Extraction,"
and 10 minutes in "Survive the Night."
These direct-to-video films have been panned by critics, but they've earned Willis a series
of huge paydays, since producers use his name and image to rake in the bucks in international markets.
Willis was usually paid around $2 million for just two days of work, according to the
Los Angeles Times.
Bruce Willis' breakout role was as David Addison in the popular 1980s TV series "Moonlighting."
Opposite him was Cybill Shepherd, who played his love interest Maddie Hayes.
Their on-screen sexual tension had fans rooting for them to get together, making them an early
purveyor of the popular "will-they-won't-they" romance trope.
But their offscreen chemistry was a different story, and according to co-star Curtis Armstrong,
the two actors couldn't stand each other.
Body doubles were used so they wouldn't have to be near each other, and they couldn't bear
to make eye contact.
Shepherd's pregnancy made tensions worse, since the schedule was shifted to accommodate
her, and Willis was forced to work longer hours.
When the pair had to film a scene that featured an argument between their characters, it devolved
into an actual argument.
The cause of their feud remains a mystery.
Armstrong said in his book "Revenge of the Nerd,"
"[Bruce] intimated to me that there had been one disastrously ill-conceived 'thing' between
him and Cybill, early on in the show's run.
While not going into explicit details, he made it clear that that kind of mistake was
one I should be sure never to make."
Additionally, Willis' fame grew significantly four seasons into the series with the release
of "Die Hard," which may have hampered his relationship with Shepherd.
"It reached a point where it was no longer fun."
Shepherd would later joke about their strained relationship in Willis' Comedy Central roast,
noting that the two hadn't spoken to each other in 30 years.
In 2015, Bruce Willis made his debut on Broadway.
He already had stage experience during the early years of his career and a few productions
throughout — including "True West" — but this marked his first time on the Great White Way.
Unfortunately for Willis, the reviews were dismal.
He played the lead role of author Paul Sheldon in the stage adaptation of Stephen King's "Misery."
The play was meant to be a thriller, as Sheldon is held captive by a rabid fan and must rewrite
his book in order to save his own life.
But to critics, Willis lacked the intensity and energy required for a character writing
against time.
Entertainment Weekly wrote that Willis played the role "with a flatness and passivity that
feels too inert"; the Hollywood Reporter described him as "disengaged"; and the New York Times
labeled him "vacant."
He was also criticized for using an earpiece to feed him lines when the play was in previews.
This came shortly after he was reportedly fired from Woody Allen's "Cafe Society" because
he couldn't memorize his lines.
After a diagnosis with the disorder aphasia, Bruce Willis' family announced his retirement,
ending a 42-year career.
His family released a statement on Instagram on March 30, 2022, stating that the communication
disorder was "impacting his cognitive abilities."
Aphasia generally affects how people speak and understand language, but the severity
of it varies.
Damage to the temporal lobe in the brain affects the ability to understand speech; additional
damage to the frontal lobe affects the ability to speak.
It's unclear to what extent Willis is affected, but most people affected by aphasia have trouble
recalling words.
This was evident to those near Willis during the final years of his career.
According to the Los Angeles Times, nearly 20 people on set with Willis suspected his
mental decline.
He had trouble memorizing his lines and was dependent on an earpiece.
He allegedly misfired a gun loaded with blanks on the set of "Hard Kill."
His agents at the Creative Artists Agency made sure his shooting times on films were
restricted to two days, and the actor often limited his time to four hours.
On one occasion, Willis questioned crew members why he was on set, visibly confused.
Willis' development is particularly tragic considering his early struggles with stuttering.
He worked hard to overcome that impediment and now is faced with another one.
But as the Independent notes, aphasia can be treated through speech rehabilitation therapy.
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