"I've done one or two too many films where I play the tough guy hero who has to extricate himself from a difficult situation. Sound familiar? I thought so," quipped Bruce Willis on his action star status.
Career
First an Emmy award-winner for his portrayal of wise-cracking detective David Addison in Moonlighting, Bruce morphed into an action superhero in the late Eighties through the Die Hard trilogy. The series spawned a slew of copycat films, many of which starred the actor himself. After appearing in two of the biggest cinematic disasters in history, an adaptation of Tom Wolfe's Bonfire Of The Vanities and Hudson Hawk, Bruce, who was born on March 19, 1955, in West Germany, floundered once again.
© Getty ImagesAlong with partners Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, he invested in Planet Hollywood, a string of themed restaurants, which quickly ran into financial difficulties. But just when it looked like his career was over, the one-time waiter reinvented himself. Taking character roles in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and Nobody's Fool alongside , Bruce altered public perception once again, proving he was not just an action hero, but an actor too. Enter M Night Shyamalan. The writer-director was the mastermind behind The Sixth Sense, the supernatural thriller that wowed audiences worldwide and ushered in another of Bruce's incarnations. His pay cheque – $20 million, plus 20 percent of the film's gross – also made an impression on his bank account.
Personal life
Bruce was half of a Hollywood power couple. His former wife, , shot to stardom with 1990's Academy Award-nominated Ghost, opposite Patrick Swayze. That decade she became the world's highest-paid actress with well-received performances in A Few Good Man, Indecent Proposal, and Disclosure. Demi and Bruce married after three months of dating and set up camp in Hailey, Idaho, 900 miles from Hollywood.
© InstagramThere they raised their three daughters, Rumer, Scout, and Tallulah. To the dismay of fans, the pair separated in 1998 and officially divorced in October 2000, after 13 years of marriage. Bruce went on to date Spanish beauty Maria Bravo Rosado, but the two split up after a little over a year together. In 2008, he began stepping out with another beautiful brunette. Despite a 24-year age gap, the connection between him and model Emma Heming was instant. Explaining her effect on his life just before their marriage in March 2009, he said: "I spent the last 10 years single and, for the most part, unhappy. "Then, I started hanging around Emma, and on a day-to-day basis my life became much happier." In 2012, the second Mrs. Willis, described by his friends as "unbelievably calm and non-demanding", made her husband even happier by presenting him with his fourth daughter, Mabel Ray.
Health battle
Bruce retired from acting last year due to a medical condition that negatively impacted his speech and comprehension. Since, he has since been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, and is now reportedly having difficulty communicating. Talking about his diagnosis, his daughter Tallulah said: " "If we can take something that we’re struggling with as a family and individually and help other people to turn it around, to make something beautiful about it, that’s really special for us," the 29-year-old said on the DrewBarrymore Show.
