In 2023, Willis officially retired, having been diagnosed with aphasia, which would later be updated to frontotemporal dementia. The Last Boy Scout, Pulp Fiction, Twelve Monkeys, The Fifth Element, Armageddon, The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, The Whole Nine Yards, and Glass are just some of the credits to his name. He acted in some very low-budget, badly received movies in the last years of his career, before being given a diagnosis for frontotemporal dementia.
As a singer, Willis released his debut album, The Return of Bruno, in 1987 and followed it up with two more albums in 1989 and 2001. He made his debut on Broadway in a stage adaptation of Stephen King's Misery in 2015. Willis has garnered several awards over the years, including a Golden Globe Award, two Prime time EmmyAwards, and two People's Choice Awards. Movies starring Willis are expected to perform strongly at the North American box office, grossing between US$2.64 billion and US$3.05 billion, making him the eighth-highest-grossing star, according to reports released in 2010.
Early life and education
Walter Bruce
Willis was born on March 19, 1955, in Idar-Oberstein, West Germany; his mother
Marlene was from Kassel, Germany, and his father, David Willis (1929–2009), was
an American soldier. Willis's father relocated the family to his hometown of
Carneys Point, New Jersey, after being discharged from the military in 1957.
Willis described his background as a "long line of blue-collar
people". His mother worked in a bank, while his father was a welder,
master mechanic, and factory worker.
Willis said he had a stutter. He went to high school at Penns Grove in Carneys Point Township, where his fellow students nicknamed him "Buck-Buck". Willis became a member of the drama club, and with time, he discovered that acting on stage took away his stutter. He was eventually voted student council president. He graduated from Penns Grove in 1973.
After high school, he worked as a security guard at the Salem Nuclear Power Plant and transported crew members at the Du Pont Chambers Works factory in Deepwater. Afterwards, he turned to acting, after a brief tenure as a private investigator, a role he would later play on the comedy-drama series Moonlighting and in the action-comedy film The Last Boy Scout.
Net worth and Salary
Bruce Willis is an American retired actor, producer, and musician with an estimated net worth of around $250 million. Throughout his successful career, he has always been regarded as one of the top-paid male stars in Hollywood. Since the late 1980s up to his retirement from active film making, he earned hundreds of millions through his film salary.
In 1999, due to a very considerable percentage of the gross, his earnings on The Sixth Sense added up to $114 million, with his upfront salary being $14 million. Until this day, this stands as the second-highest amount ever earned by one actor for a film. Technically speaking, however, the number one record is held by Keanu Reeves' $156 million payout for TWO Matrix films. One could thus say that Bruce's payment for The Sixth Sense is the largest single payout in Hollywood history.
Success
Bruce auditioned in 1985 and got the role of David Addison, Jr., who would become one-half of the familiar couple that made up Moonlighting. Alongside Cybill Shepherd, Bruce drew on all his previous experience as a private eye over 5 seasons between 1985 and 1989. The show made Willis an international star, picked up an Emmy for Outstanding Lead in a Drama Series, and won a GoldenGlobe award. His popularity led to his recruitment by Seagram to be the face of their Golden Wine Cooler in an ad campaign, for which Willis received $7 million over two years. Adjusting for inflation, that's the equivalent of about $17 million in present-day dollars. Willis ended this contract with Seagrams when he declared himself sober in 1988.
Die Hard
And then came the film rolls for Willis, who was thrust into A-List status. His first film appearance as John McClane was in 1988 in Die Hard. The film made him a star, both for television and films. He earned $5 million for the first Die Hard, $7.5 million for the second, $15 million for the third, and $25 million for the fourth installment. All together, Bruce earned over $52 million from the Die Hard franchise, to say nothing of inflation. Really, it's more in the range of $70-80 million.
Other Notable Films
Bruce earned $10 million for lending his voice to the character of Look Who's Talking in 1989. That made $10 million more from the sequel.
Bruce made a whopping pay cut in 1994 and signed on for only $800,000 to star in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. The role rejuvenated Bruce's career and placed him securely on the track back to being a reliable A-list movie star.
Willis has been uneven in critical reception, but he has delivered some of the biggest box-office grossers. The four Die Hard films grossed more than $1.1 billion worldwide. Armageddon was the highest-grossing film of 1998, standing $553 million on its own. In critical and commercial acclaim, he also crowned his highest-grossing film, standing $673 million, The Sixth Sense.
He also won two Emmys (one for his role on Moonlighting and another for a guest-starring role on Friends), a Golden Globe (for Moonlighting), and two People's Choice Awards (Moonlighting and The Sixth Sense).
Bruce Willis Real Estate
Over time, he has acquired several extraordinarily valuable real estate properties by Bruce Willis around the globe. In 1990, Bruce and Demi Moore purchased a penthouse of 7,000 square feet in Central Park's San Remo building in New York City for $7 million. Very shortly after, they purchased a two-bedroom additional unit in the same building, which was transferred to Demi as part of the divorce settlement. In her 2015 listing of the house priced at jaw-dropping $75 million, she sold it in 2017 for $45 million.
In 2014, he sold his former Beverly Hills mansion for $16.5 million, and then, in April 2018, he sold a penthouse in New York for $18 million. In March 2019, he advertised a sprawling estate in Turks and Caicos for $33 million. The estate sprawls over 7.4 acres and consists of a 13,500-square-foot private compound with guest houses, a yoga studio, kids' play structure, beach volleyball, four pools, and more.
Several months after listing the above home for sale for $33 million, Bruce accepted $27 million from the founder of a multibillion-dollar insurance company called Goosehead Insurance. The new owners listed the property for sale in February 2022 for $37.5 million. Bruce acquired a home in Brentwood, California, for a little under $10 million around the same time as the challenge with the 2019 Turks and Caicos listing. And a few months earlier, he ft listed a home in upstate New York for $13 million and sold a home in Idaho for $5 million.
Bruce Willis' Salary Per Movie
The biggest career payday by far for Bruce is The Sixth Sense. He took an upfront paycheck of $14 million for the film, along with a sizable percentage of the gross receipts. He made around $100 million out of this movie. Since the end of the 1980s, Bruce has been commanding 8-figure salaries.
In 1988, he earned $5 million in his movies, equivalent around $10 million now. The next year, he earned $10 million for "Look Who's Talking," worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 million in today's dollars. He earned another $10 million one year later for the sequel. For "The Last Boy Scout," his fee in 1991 was $14 million, while he was paid $15 million for 1995's "Die Hard: With a Vengeance," $16.5 million for 1996's "Last Man Standing," and $14.8 million for 1998's "Armageddon." He earned nearly $55 million in total during 2000, mainly from two movies, "The Kid" and "Unbreakable" ($20 million advanced against each). The next year, he earned $70 million and $46 million in 2002. Under average circumstances, he can easily rake in a minimum of $20 million or a minimal amount of work.
| Screen Name | Bruce Willis |
|---|---|
| Real Name | Walter Bruce Willis |
| Date of Birth | March 19, 1955 |
| Age | 70 years |
| Birth Place | Idar-Oberstein, West Germany |
| Mother | Marlene Willis |
| Father | David Willis |
| Sibling | One sister: Florence Willis |
| Children | Rumer Willis, Scout Willis, Tallulah Willis (with Demi Moore) Mabel Ray Willis, Evelyn Penn Willis (with Emma Heming Willis) |
| Weight | Approx. 91 kg (200 lbs) |
| Eyes Colour | Blue |
| Hair Colour | Light Brown |
| Spouse | Emma Heming Willis and Bruce Willis have been married for 16 years since March 21, 2009. |
| Relationships |
• Previously married to Demi Moore (1987 – 2000). • Engaged to Brooke Burns (2003 – 2004). • Relationships with: Karen McDougal (2006–2007), Rachel Hunter (2001–2002), Alisha Klass (2000–2001), Maria Bravo (1999–2001), Sherryl Raymond (1986–1987), and Amara Zaragoza. • Encounters with: Aida Yespica (2005), Kim Cattrall (2003), Nadia Bjorlin (2002), Emily Sandberg (2002). • Rumoured hookups with: Lindsay Lohan (2005), Lisa Barbuscia, Janice Dickinson, and Estella Warren. |
| Net Worth | $250 Million |
| Country | USA |
| Profession | Actor |
| Nationality | USA, Germany |
| Social Media |
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