by John Nolte, Breitbart:
Within five minutes, I knew Bruce Willis would not only be a star but a sure-thing, can’t-lose superstar. It was March 3, 1985. I was an 18-year-old ne’er-do-well living in a South Florida rooming house. That was the night Moonlighting premiered, and within five minutes, anyone could see Bruce Willis had it all, the whole megillah.
Bruce Willis’s David Addison was hilarious, charming, witty, bold, chivalrous, street smart, and most importantly, he could laugh at himself. David Addison was amazing. Everyone wanted to be David Addison. He was cool. He was his own man. And for the next decade—along with other cool, self-deprecating personalities like Don Johnson’s Sonny Crockett—Bruce Willis would define American masculinity. This made the 80s and 90s a great time to be a man…and a woman.
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Ask Demi Moore about that. Bruce Willis won Demi Moore when she was at peak Demi Moore, when she was the hottest thing that ever walked the planet. And he won her permanently. They divorced, but she’s still around, helping him through his third act. That makes her a beauty in more ways than one.
While Moonlighting was still on the air, and to the surprise of no one, the movies came calling, and what followed were a couple of stinkers from a late-era Blake Edwards: Blind Date (1987) and Sunset (1988). I was already a Bruce Willis fan, so I saw both. They were awful. Nevertheless, it would take more than two duds to dull my certainty Bruce Willis would become THE movie star in an era full of movie stars… And then along came Die Hard (1988).
Bruce Willis in “Die Hard” (20th Century Fox)
Die Hard was the movie star vehicle of all movie star vehicles, a rocket ship fueled and fine-tuned to launch Willis where he belonged—into the eternal heavens with the other immortals. It took 132 minutes to meld the perfect screen persona to the exact right actor. Die Hard was Bruce’s Stagecoach, his Pretty Woman, his 48 Hrs… Instant superstardom.
Bruce Willis had a persona that couldn’t lose: The put-upon everyman, the glorious wise-ass who despised and distrusted authority and still got the job done; the irreverent, reluctant, not-this-shit-again hero who didn’t take himself seriously, who was always behind the eight-ball personally and professionally, who was achingly fallible and ready (even if he didn’t know it) for redemption.
