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Bruce Willis (born Walter Bruce Willison on March 19, 1955) is a two-time Emmy
Award-winning, Golden Globe-winning American actor and singer. He came to fame in
the late 1980s and has since retained a career as both a Hollywood leading man and
a supporting actor, in particular for his role in the Die Hard series.
Willis first found fame with his starring role in the hit TV series Moonlighting
(1985–89) establishing himself as a comedic actor. However, it was his
then-unexpected turn in the Die Hard series that catapulted him to fame. He also
was successful in his role as the voice of little Mikey in the Look Who's Talking
series.
In the late-1980s, Willis enjoyed moderate success as a recording artist, recording
an album of pop-blues entitled The Return of Bruno, which included the hit single
"Respect Yourself", promoted by a Spinal Tap-like rockumentary parody featuring
scenes of him performing at famous events including Woodstock. Follow-up recordings
were not as successful, though Willis does return to the recording studio from time
to time.
In the early 1990s, Willis' career suffered a moderate slump starring in flops such
as The Bonfire of the Vanities and Hudson Hawk, among others. However, in 1994 he
had a supporting role in Quentin Tarantino's acclaimed Pulp Fiction, which gave a
new boost to his career. In 1996, he produced the cartoon Bruno the Kid which
featured a CGI representation of himself. He went on to play the lead roles in
Twelve Monkeys and The Fifth Element. However, by the end of the '90s, his career
had fallen into another slump with critically panned films like The Jackal, Mercury
Rising and Breakfast of Champions, saved only by the success of the Michael
Bay-directed ARmageddon which was the highest grossing film of 1998 in the US.
In 1999, Willis then went on to the starring role in M. Night Shyamalan's film, The
Sixth Sense. The film was both a commercial and critical success and launched
Willis' career to a new level of stardom. He once had to appear in the hit sitcom
Friends without pay, because he lost a bet to Matthew Perry, his co-star in The
Whole Nine Yards and its sequel The Whole Ten Yards. He won a 2000 Emmy for
Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his work on Friends (in which he
played the father of Ross Geller's much-younger girlfriend). He was also nominated
for a 2001 American Comedy Award (in the Funniest Male Guest Appearance in a TV
Series category) for his work on Friends. Willis was originally cast as Terry
Benedict in Ocean's Eleven (2001) but dropped out. In Ocean's Twelve (2003), he
makes a cameo appearance as himself. He recently appeared in the Planet Terror half
of Grindhouse as the villain, a mutant soldier. This marks Willis' second
collaboration with director Robert Rodriguez, following Sin City.
Willis also appeared on Japanese Subaru Legacy television commercials, optimising
the car for sale, with the backing music of Jade from Sweetbox, "Addicted" and
"Hate Without Frontiers". Tying in with this, Subaru did a limited run of Legacys,
badged "Subaru Legacy Touring Bruce", in honor of Willis.
Willis has appeared in four movies with Samuel L. Jackson (Unbreakable, Pulp
Fiction, Die Hard with a Vengeance, and National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1). He is
also currently working on the film Black Water Transit alongside Jackson due in
2007. He has finished filming the thriller Perfect Stranger, opposite Halle Berry,
and is now filming his return to the role of John McClane in Live Free or Die Hard
which is being directed by Len Wiseman.
On October 16, 2006, Willis was honored with a star of the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The star is located at 6915 Hollywood Boulevard and it is the 2321st Star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Source : Some of the information on this page came
from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the GNU Documentation
License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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