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Bruce Willis
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Miami Vice Character
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Tony Amato ("No Exit")
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Miami Vice Music Performer
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Born
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March 19, 1955 (age 69)
Idar-Oberstein, Germany |
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Active
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1976-2022
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Spouses/Children
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Demi Moore (1987-2000, 3 children)
Emma Heming (2009-present, 2 children) |
Walter Bruce Willis (born March 19, 1955) is a retired American actor, producer, and singer, most famous for his role as John McClane in the Die Hard films. He made his TV debut in the show Miami Vice as Tony Amato, gun runner, in the episode "No Exit", and also performed the song "Respect Yourself" for the episode "Lend Me an Ear".
Career[]
Willis was born in Idar-Oberstein, Germany, the son of an American soldier and a German banker mother giving Willis dual citizenship of both Germany and the United States. After his father was discharged from the Army, the family relocated to Penns Grove, Salem County, New Jersey. Due to a stuttering problem that caused classmates to tease him, Willis began acting in high school, which he would return to after stints working in a nuclear power plant and as a PI. He enrolled in acting classes at Montclair State, leaving in his junior year after a role in a school production to move to New York. After appearing in an off-Broadway production of Fool For Love and a couple of uncredited roles in movies, he moved to Los Angeles, where he began auditioning for television shows.
He was cast as a Miami Vice guest star on recommendation by Don Johnson. The two knew each other from a bar in New York, where Willis was the bartender.
Bruce Willis is arguably among the most notable guest stars to appear in Miami Vice
After his Vice appearance, Willis auditioned for the role of David Addison, Jr. in the series Moonlighting, which he won over 3,000 other actors. Moonlighting lasted five seasons, during which Willis won an Emmy for his role as Addison, and his career skyrocketed. He branched into music, releasing an album The Return of Bruno. He returned to the movies with roles in Blind Date (with Mark Blum) and Sunset (with Joe Dallesandro), before landing his first major role as John McClane in the first Die Hard movie (with Paul Gleason), which spawned four sequels: Die Hard 2, Die Hard With A Vengeance (with Aasif Mandviwala), Live Free or Die Hard, and A Good Day to Die Hard. Other movie roles around this time include In Country, and voice roles in Look Who's Talking and Look Who's Talking Too. After a string of flops in the early 1990s, he came back with a role in Pulp Fiction (with Amanda Plummer, Ving Rhames, and Paul Calderon), followed by roles in Twelve Monkeys and The Fifth Element (with Brion James). More flops followed, then, showing his resiliency, returned with a role in Armageddon directed by Michael Bay and costarring Steve Buscemi, followed by The Sixth Sense. In 2000, he appeared in the hit comedy Friends in a guest role as the father to Ross Geller's college-age girlfriend. For this, he won his second Emmy, and also starred with one of the cast, Matthew Perry, in The Whole Nine Yards. He next appeared in the commercially unsuccessful Hart's War (with Colin Farrell), before reuniting with Matthew Perry for the sequel The Whole Ten Yards, which also failed to match the success of the first film. Willis has also filled in for David Letterman on The Late Show occasionally, as well as appeared on his show. He continues to make movies with roles in 2010's Cop Out, The Expendables, and in 2011's Setup and Catch .44 (with Brad Dourif), and 2012's Fire With Me (with Vincent D'Onofrio) and Lay the Favorite, and 2013's G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Red 2 (sequel to his 2010 film), and Sin City: A Dame to Care For (with Michael Madsen), the remake of Death Wish (with Vincent D'Onofrio, and his most recent film appearance, 2018's Air Strike.
Personal Life[]
Willis is the eldest of four siblings. His brother Robert died of pancreatic cancer in 2001 at age 42. He has another brother, David, and a sister, Florence. After meeting at the premiere of his movie Stakeout, Willis married former "Brat Pack" actress Demi Moore in 1987. They had three daughters, Rumer (born 1988), Scout LaRue (born 1991, Demi Moore's famous Vanity Fair cover was when she was pregnant with Scout) and Tallulah Belle (born 1994). Wills and Moore divorced in 2000. Moore married and divorced actor Ashton Kutcher, while Willis, after several failed relationships, married model Emma Heming in 2009, with Kutcher, Moore, and Willis' daughters present, and they have two daughters, Mabel Ray (born 2012) and Evelyn Penn (born 2014). In March, 2022, Willis' family announced he was stepping away from acting due to the onset of aphasia, a condition which impacts his cognitive abilities, and in February 2023, the family announced his condition has progressed to Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD).