Bruce Willis

Date of Birth	19 March 1955 , Idar-Oberstein, West Germany
Birth Name	Walter Bruce Willis
Nickname	Bruno
Height	6' (1.83 m)

Biography

Actor and musician Bruce Willis is well known for his film appearances as wisecracking or hard-edged characters, often in spectacular action films. Collectively, he has appeared in films that have grossed in excess of $2.5 billion USD placing him in the top ten stars in terms of box office receipts. Walter Bruce Willis was born on March 19, 1955, in West Germany, to an American father and a German mother, who were living on a United States military base. He was raised in Penns Grove, New Jersey. Willis picked up an interest for the dramatic arts in high school, and was allegedly "discovered" whilst working in a café in New York City and then appeared in a couple of off-Broadway productions. While bartending one night, he was seen by a casting director who liked his personality and needed a bartender for a small movie role.

After countless auditions, Willis contributed minor film appearances, usually uncredited, before landing the role of private eye "David Addison" alongside sultry Cybill Shepherd in the hit romantic comedy television series Moonlighting (1985). The series firmly established Bruce Willis as a hot new talent, and his sarcastic and wisecracking P.I. was in effect a dry run for the role of hard-boiled NYC detective "John McClane" in the monster hit Die Hard (1988). This superbly paced action film balanced laconic humor and wholesale destruction as Willis' character single handedly battles a gang of ruthless international thieves in a Los Angeles skyscraper. Willis reprized the role of tough guy cop "John McClane" in the eagerly anticipated sequel Die Hard 2 (1990) set at snowbound Washington's Dulles International Airport as a group of renegade Special Forces soldiers seek to repatriate a corrupt South American general. Excellent box office returns demanded a further sequel Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995) this time also starring Samuel L. Jackson as a cynical Harlem shopowner unwittingly thrust into assisting McClane during a terrorist bombing campaign on a sweltering day in NYC.