Bruce Willis is one of the biggest movie stars of the past few decades, but, did you know
that if he had his way, he also would have helped bring down a notorious dictator?
Even if you've seen all of his movies, there's probably plenty you don't know about this
iconic actor.
Unless you grew up with Bruce Willis, chances are you're unaware that he had trouble speaking
as a child.
As he put it during a 2002 interview with Reader's Digest:
"I had a horrible stutter."
The stutter developed when he was about 9 and continued until he was 17.
But something unexpected happened while he was performing in a high school production
of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
As soon as he got on stage, his stuttering vanished.
But then when he exited the stage, it returned.
As he recalled:
"I went, 'This is a miracle.
I got to investigate this more.'"
During a 2013 interview with GQ, Willis recalled being fascinated with the realization that
his stutter disappeared when he spoke words that he'd memorized.
As he put it,
"That was the beginning of the gradual dispelling of my stutter.
I thought I was handicapped.
I couldn’t talk at all.
I still stutter around some people now."
In 2016, Willis was honored by the American Institute for Stuttering.
During his acceptance speech, he declared:
"It means much more to me than you can know."
After graduating from high school, Willis studied drama at Montclair State University
in New Jersey.
He never graduated, though, as he decided to bail in his sophomore year so that he could
head to New York City and try to hack it as an actor.
And just like a lot of other aspiring performers who head to the Big Apple in search of their
big break, Willis tended bar to pay his rent.
And apparently, he was pretty darn good at it.
His pal John Goodman, who was also an up-and-coming actor at the time, got to see Willis in action
at the long-since-shuttered Chelsea Central on Manhattan's Upper West Side.
As Goodman told the New York Post in 2013,
"Bruce was the best bartender in New York.
He kept an entire joint entertained all night.
He just kept the show going.
He was amazing."
"You bartender, you know, taking what jobs you can get."
During Willis' stint swinging drinks, the Chelsea Central was quite the gathering place.
As Goodman put it:
"It was, at the time, where actors would go after the show if they were in town filming.
It was all kinds of people, musicians, Upper West Siders, actors, sportswriters."
When it comes to iconic Bruce Willis movies, there's one that stands head and shoulders
above the rest: Die Hard.
The 1988 action classic transformed him from wisecracking TV star to wisecracking big-screen
action hero.
While it now seems impossible to picture any other actor in the role of NYPD detective
John McClane, he was actually far from the first choice.
He reportedly wasn't even on the studio's original wish list, which instead included
such already established stars as Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, and Burt Reynolds.
As Willis joked to Entertainment Weekly in 2007:
"I think I was the 50th choice!
They went to everybody."
But Willis did get the part, and he ended up being paid a hefty $5 million, a substantial
sum that reverberated throughout the industry.
As the actor put it to EW:
"The day after I signed the deal, every actor in Hollywood's salary went up to $5 million."
And all that cash wasn't the only thing that Willis took away from that star-making experience.
As he revealed to The Guardian in 2007:
"Due to an accident on the first Die Hard, I suffer two-thirds partial hearing loss in
my left ear and have a tendency to say, 'Whaaa?'"
If we had to guess, we'd say he probably prefers the money to the hearing loss.
"Come out to the coast, we'll get together, have a few laughs."
The success of the comedy-drama hybrid TV show Moonlighting led to Bruce Willis appearing
in TV commercials for Seagram's wine coolers in the late 80s.
In one one of the spots, he can be seen picking up a trio of gorgeous women at a nightclub,
while another one features him singing a rollicking blues number on a porch while using a wine
cooler bottle as a microphone.
He was reportedly paid somewhere between $5 and $7 million for the gig.
Willis' stint as a pitchman for a booze brand eventually became a little awkward, though.
Whether he quit of his own accord or was fired, he ended his association with Seagram's after
he was arrested for driving under the influence.
He was also later arrested for allegedly assaulting a police officer when cops broke up a raucous
party that he was hosting in 1987.
In 2013, Willis spoke with GQ about his relationship with alcohol, as he revealed that even though
he'd gotten sober, he had since allowed himself a glass of wine every once in a while.
As he put it:
"Once I realized that I wasn't gonna run myself off the pier of life with alcohol, drinking
vodka out of the bottle every day...
I have wine now, mostly when I eat."
It may sound bizarre today, but there was a time when Bruce Willis made a bit of a splash
in the music industry.
That somewhat surprising turn of events happened thanks to the release of his 1987 album The
Return of Bruno.
Featuring Willis singing and playing harmonica, the album featured cover versions of hits
from the 50s and 60s.
In a review of one of Willis' live performances from that time, The New York Times dismissed
the actor as a "poseur," noting that watching him singing "Stand By Me" with special guest
Ben E. King, the song's original singer, was:
"A textbook demonstration of the difference between minstrelsy and soul singing."
Despite the criticism, Willis released his version of "Respect Yourself" as a single,
along with an accompanying music video, and it actually performed respectably.
It peaked at number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100, while the album sold well enough to warrant
a follow-up, 1989's If It Don't Kill You, It Just Makes You Stronger.
By then, though, it appeared that the novelty had worn off, as he's never released a third
album in all the years since.
Bruce Willis tied the knot with Demi Moore back in 1987.
They were a bit of a Hollywood power couple at the time, but it didn't last forever, as
they eventually divorced in 2000.
As Willis admitted to Rolling Stone shortly after the split:
"It's difficult for any couple to keep their marriage intact under the best of circumstances,
and our marriage was under a huge magnifying glass all the time."
When asked to pinpoint what exactly led to the split, he admitted that he hadn't quite
figured it out.
But back when they made it official, Willis and Moore hired a very special officiant to
perform the ceremony: none other than legendary musician Little Richard.
When the singer passed away in 2020, Moore took to Instagram to share a photo from their
wedding, along with a brief tribute.
As she wrote,
"Bruce and I were so lucky and honored to have him officiate our wedding back in 1987
— thankful for the memories."
"We were married, let's see, almost 12 years, and that's like 84 in Bruce Willis years."
And this wasn't the only celebrity wedding that Little Richard officiated during his
life, as he also reportedly presided over the ceremonies of Cyndi Lauper and David Thornton,
Tom Petty and Dana York, and E Street Band member Steven Van Zandt and his wife Maureen.
Bruce Willis was no fan of Saddam Hussein, which was abundantly clear when he was performing
for American troops stationed in Iraq back in 2003.
As reported by the Associated Press, he offered a $1 million reward for the capture of the
Iraqi dictator.
He also implied that he was ready to deliver some justice with his own bare hands.
As he told the soldiers in the audience,
"If you catch him, just give me four seconds with Saddam Hussein."
Offering one of his many millions as a bounty on Saddam Hussein was just the tip of the
iceberg when it came to Willis' patriotism, as he once considered enlisting in the military.
As he revealed during an interview:
"I thought about signing up but my friends told me I was too old.
I called the White House, called President [George W.] Bush and asked what I could do."
Unfortunately for Willis, he was 47 at the time and the upper age limit for new recruits
was 34, and no exception was made for him.
The Sixth Sense was one of the biggest hits of Willis' career, as it raked in more than
$672 million worldwide.
But if things had happened just a little differently, he may have never even signed on in the first
place.
As the Los Angeles Times reported back in 1997, it all began when Willis was shooting
a film for Disney called Broadway Brawler.
Willis clashed with the director, and it was so serious that production was shut down,
and the movie was scrapped after 20 days of filming.
That left the studio $17 million in the hole with nothing to show for it.
Producer Joe Roth then came up with an innovative solution to defuse the situation by having
Willis agree to star in three movies for Disney.
As part of the deal, he would be paid far less upfront than the $20 million per movie
he was asking at the time, which would be enough to offset the $17 million wasted on
Broadway Brawler.
The incentive for Willis was that he would presumably earn money on the backend if the
new movies were successful.
Those films ended up being Armageddon, The Sixth Sense, and The Kid, which raked in a
combined $1.3 billion worldwide at the box office.
"Look at us go."
Broadway Brawler wasn't the only time that Bruce Willis reportedly butted heads with
one of his directors.
There was also some strife when he starred opposite Tracy Morgan in the 2010 comedy Cop
Out.
Willis has never addressed the issue publicly, but director Kevin Smith certainly has.
During a 2011 interview on Marc Maron's podcast, Smith described working with Willis as "soul
crushing."
While he never mentioned Willis by name, he did tease,
"Everyone knows who it is."
Smith described the experience of making Cop Out by revealing,
"It was difficult.
I've never been involved in a situation like that where one component is not in the box
at all [...] I had no f---ing help from this dude whatsoever."
Smith did mention Willis by name at the film's wrap party, which Willis didn't attend.
As he reportedly declared to the cast and crew:
"I want to thank everyone who worked on the film, except for Bruce Willis... who is a
f---ing d---!"
Years later, Smith offered Willis an apology, as he tweeted in 2022:
"I feel like an a------ for my petty complaints from 2010."
A quick glance at Bruce Willis' filmography indicates how busy he's been in recent years.
IMDb lists eight acting credits for him in 2021, seven for 2022, and a few more projects
in post-production currently without a release date.
In March 2022, it seemingly became clear why he'd embarked on such a breakneck pace.
That was when his family issued a statement on Instagram that revealed he'd been experiencing
serious health issues.
As it turned out, Willis had recently received a diagnosis of aphasia, a condition that can
affect one's communication skills and understanding of language.
As the Instagram post revealed:
"As a result of this and with much consideration Bruce is stepping away from the career that
has meant so much to him."
"For someone like Bruce Willis, who's such a genius on the screen and using all of these
skills for his living, it must be so hard."
The announcement was meant as a courtesy to Willis' fans to let them know what was happening.
It also noted,
"We are moving through this as a strong family unit, and wanted to bring his fans in because
we know how much he means to you, as you do to him."
Willis' loved ones signed off the statement by promising,
"As Bruce always says, 'Live it up' and together we plan to do just that."