Bruce Willis

Born March 19, 1955, on a military base in Idar-Oberstein, West Germany, Bruce Willis grew up in Penns Grove, N.J. He studied acting in New York while tending bar and made his film debut as an extra in The First Deadly Sin and The Verdict.

Willis's wise guy sparring with Cybill Sheperd on TV's "Moonlighting" made him a superstar and won him an Emmy. His first major film roles, Blind Date and Sunset, played on his romantic comedy rep; neither film was a hit. It was his risky casting as tough cop John McClane in 1988's Die Hard that paid off in aces, making him one of the all-time TV-to-big-screen successes.

Willis alternates between action epics (two Die Hard sequels, The Last Boy Scout, The Fifth Element, Armageddon, Tears of the Sun), comedy (Death Becomes Her, The Whole Nine Yards) and more personal, offbeat projects (Twelve Monkeys, Pulp Fiction and his biggest hit, The Sixth Sense).

Filmography