Bruce Willis Biography

American actor and musician Bruce Willis was born in 1955 in Idar-Oberstein, Germany while his father was stationed in the country as an American soldier. After leaving the military, Willis’s brought the family to New Jersey, where Bruce spent most of his formative years. As a young child, Bruce suffered from a slight stutter, but found that the stutter disappeared during performances on stage. As a result, he sought out opportunities to work with the school drama club and frequently appeared in high school plays.

Willis at first worked a variety of jobs, including private investigator and security guard, before deciding to pursue acting as a full-time career. He began his pursuit by attending Montclair State University as a drama major, but left school before graduating to move to New York and later Los Angeles so that he could audition for more substantial roles with greater frequency. Willis’s earliest roles were on stage in various off-Broadway productions in New York, and then appearances in a number of television shows, including Miami Vice and The Twilight Zone. But it was his role on the series Moonlighting, in the role of David Addison Jr., that would become his biggest breakthrough. The role earned Bruce multiple awards, including an Emmy Award, and launched a career which has since lasted more than three decades.

Throughout the 1980’s, Bruce Willis was most closely associated with his role on Moonlighting, but he also began performing as a musician, recording a number of pop-blues albums such as The Return of Bruno (1987) and If It Don’t Kill You, It Just Makes You Stronger (1989.) He also contributed vocals to soundtracks for a number of his films, including Hudson Hawk (on the songs “Side by Side” and “Swinging on a Star.”) During this time he also appeared in films such as: Blind Date (1987), Sunset (1988), In Country (1989), and the first of the Die Hard franchises, in which he would reprise his role for Die Hard 2 (1990) and Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995.)

Additional blockbuster hits in which Bruce Willis has starred include: The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), Hudson Hawk (1991), Death Becomes Her (1992), North (1994), Pulp Fiction (1994), 12 Monkeys (1995), The Fifth Element (1997), Armageddon (1998), The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000), Ocean’s Twelve (2004), Moonrise Kingdom (2012), and Looper (2012.) For his work, he has been recognized with two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award, and he has risen to become one of the era’s most bankable stars.

Most recently, Bruce Willis returned to the stage to make his Broadway debut in the current stage adaptation of Stephen King’s novel, Misery. Willis is also scheduled to appear in three movies shceulded for release in 2016: The Bombing, Going Under, and Marauders.