Speaker 1: This is an I Heart original. It's Memorial Day weekend.
Speaker 1: Seven people all over the country are having big celebrations,
Speaker 1: but few are having as big or as loud as
Speaker 1: celebration as Bruce Willis. The actor who was experiencing both
Speaker 1: newfound fame and newfound wealth after years of trying to
Speaker 1: break into the entertainment business, is enjoying the fruits of
Speaker 1: his labor. He's making fifty thousand dollars a week on
Speaker 1: the hit ABC series Moonlighting. There are TV commercials and movies,
Speaker 1: and a script for an action film that's going to
Speaker 1: change his life. His house in the Hollywood Hills is
Speaker 1: packed to the rafters with friends. His expensive stereo system
Speaker 1: is cranked up and playing a bunch of different albums,
Speaker 1: including classics from the likes of Diana Ross. It's also
Speaker 1: playing tracks from a new Motown Records release titled The
Speaker 1: Return of Bruno. The album's most memorable single was under
Speaker 1: the Boardwalk, a cover song featuring Bruno's tenor voice layered
Speaker 1: over the deep bass of his backing Bandwalk When the Sun.
Speaker 1: Bruno is Willis's musical alter ego, sort of the way
Speaker 1: David Bowie went by Ziggy Stardust or Garth Brooks went
Speaker 1: by Chris Gaines. Willis has toured as Bruno, played live
Speaker 1: dates as Bruno. When he's Bruno, he somehow possesses even
Speaker 1: more swagger than usual. He's uninhibited, and now that he's
Speaker 1: got a record, he's going to play it. Hey, it's
Speaker 1: a holiday weekend. There's nothing wrong with Bruce Willis playing
Speaker 1: his own album at his own house, except it's loud.
Speaker 1: Allegedly really loud. That's what Willis's neighbors tell the police
Speaker 1: when they phone in a noise complaint, and so at
Speaker 1: some point in the evening, Bruce Willis is greeted by
Speaker 1: patrol officers who have come to ask him to turn
Speaker 1: down the music, to turn down the brunow and appease
Speaker 1: his neighbors. But Bruce Willis is not what law enforcement
Speaker 1: would describe as cooperative. According to the police report, he
Speaker 1: doesn't agree to turn down the music. Instead, he tells
Speaker 1: the cops that they aren't invited, they don't have a warrant,
Speaker 1: and to get the out of his house. The cops
Speaker 1: do not comply. There is more yelling, posturing. Willis's friends
Speaker 1: get involved, and then things escalate. What happens next can
Speaker 1: best be described as better. More cops show up, allegedly,
Speaker 1: so do police helicopters. Willis is handcuffed, arrested, and the party,
Speaker 1: at least for the moment, is open. There will be
Speaker 1: a number of changes in Bruce Willis's life following this altercation.
Speaker 1: The most important is that he'll soon decide life in
Speaker 1: the Hollywood Hills. Life in Hollywood might not be for him.
Speaker 1: Neither is fame. The arrest makes the tabloids, so does
Speaker 1: his new relationship with actress Dummy Moore. Bruce Willis just
Speaker 1: wants to be free, to make his music blast, his
Speaker 1: music unwind, and to live his life without being put
Speaker 1: under a microscope or in the back of a police car.
Speaker 1: He was becoming too famous for comfort. And the worst part,
Speaker 1: die Hard hadn't even come out yet. For I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: This is Haleywood and I Heart original podcast, I'm your
Speaker 1: host Danis Schwartz, and this is episode two, Welcome to
Speaker 1: the Party pal. At the beginning of the nine eighties,
Speaker 1: Bruce Willis wasn't yet Bruce Willis home wasn't the Hollywood
Speaker 1: Hills but a fifth floor walk up in Hell's Kitchen.
Speaker 1: He was a struggling actor who had come out of
Speaker 1: the working class town of Penn's Grove, New Jersey. While
Speaker 1: he was going to auditions, Willis supported himself like most
Speaker 1: actors do in the service industry. He worked as a
Speaker 1: bartender at Cafe Central, a hip New York City hang
Speaker 1: out at the corner of Street and Amsterdam Avenue. For Willis,
Speaker 1: it was an opportunity to catch some of New York's
Speaker 1: most renowned actors off the clock. Al Pacino, Robert de Niro,
Speaker 1: and Danny A. Yello were regulars. So was John Goodman,
Speaker 1: who became a close friend of Willis's. But in some respects,
Speaker 1: the real attraction of Cafe Central wasn't the opportunity to
Speaker 1: catch Pacino or de Niro. It was Willis who applied
Speaker 1: his trade as a bartender by effortlessly charming everyone inside
Speaker 1: in the bar. He was very cocky, very funny, kind
Speaker 1: of allowed. You know, some more tenders want to lend
Speaker 1: into the background, as some want to make an impression.
Speaker 1: He sort of had even then, this thing that you
Speaker 1: couldn't stop looking at him. That's Martha Frankel. You remember
Speaker 1: Martha from her ill fated interview with Bruce Willis for
Speaker 1: movie line The one where he forced a restaurant to
Speaker 1: close so he wouldn't have to deal with the world
Speaker 1: at large. But Martha also knew Willis long before then.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was starting out as a writer and
Speaker 1: a lot of my friends were upcoming actors. You watch,
Speaker 1: you know, you see what's going on. She frequently stopped
Speaker 1: into Cafe Central in the early nineteen eighties and witnessed
Speaker 1: Willis in action, tossing around cocktail shakers and one liners,
Speaker 1: a lot of gorgeous young actors and actresses filling those boots,
Speaker 1: and Bruce isn't you know, he's not. It's not that
Speaker 1: he's such a show stop or physically. When you see
Speaker 1: somebody like a young Aidan Quinn, a young Puccino, a
Speaker 1: young Robert Duvaal, maybe you wouldn't notice Bruce as much.
Speaker 1: But he had a personality, and he had a big personality.
Speaker 1: So when he started making a people remembered him. For
Speaker 1: Martha and everyone else in Willis's orbit in those days,
Speaker 1: they could tell there was something about this guy. He
Speaker 1: was quick, witty, and confident. If you went to Cafe Central,
Speaker 1: he stood out. I liked him as a bartender. This
Speaker 1: was somebody who came up in New York and you
Speaker 1: know how to work for it. He he was not
Speaker 1: handed anything. At the time. Willis went by a nickname. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think they called him Bruno. Bruno was a perfect
Speaker 1: name for a charismatic bartender in a New York bar,
Speaker 1: a character among characters. I can only imagine that it
Speaker 1: was like a roll to him, and he was good
Speaker 1: at it. He could like keep five conversations going. Bruss
Speaker 1: always remembered your name, he remembered your backstory, he remembered
Speaker 1: your friends. And that's you know, you make a lot
Speaker 1: of tips when you do that. But I don't think
Speaker 1: it was what he was looking to do. You got
Speaker 1: the sense, Bruce or Bruno was destined for bigger and
Speaker 1: better things. But Willis didn't tend bar as some actors do,
Speaker 1: for a few months or even a year. He did
Speaker 1: it for at least six years, spending his nights watching
Speaker 1: accomplished actors come and go while he auditioned during the day.
Speaker 1: While bartending, he nabbed the Verdict and some other bit
Speaker 1: and stage parts. The eighties war on. He eventually got
Speaker 1: an agent, and that agent eventually sent him to audition
Speaker 1: for a movie called Desperately Seeking Susan, which would go
Speaker 1: on to star Madonna, but not co star Bruce Willis.
Speaker 1: Then Willis landed an audition at ABC, where writer Glenn
Speaker 1: Gordon Karen was mounting an hour long comedy titled moon Lighting.
Speaker 1: Karen's idea was to take the detective format, which had
Speaker 1: been popular on television practically since television was invented, and
Speaker 1: turn it into a rapid fire, screwball comedy. His leads,
Speaker 1: private detectives David Addison and Mattie Hayes, would be a
Speaker 1: combustible pair working cases for their Blue Moon Detective Agency
Speaker 1: while trying to ignore their mutual attraction. The dialogue would
Speaker 1: come fast and furious. The pace would be snappy. The
Speaker 1: idea was ambitious. At the time, Network TV was home
Speaker 1: to the A Team, Who's the Boss, and other formulaic hits.
Speaker 1: Moonlighting would be a step away from the usual. Karen
Speaker 1: found his Maddie in Sybil Shepherd, an actress best known
Speaker 1: at the time for appearing in The Last Picture Show
Speaker 1: in and Taxi Driver in s But despite seeing hundreds
Speaker 1: of actors, Karen hadn't yet found his David Addison. Addison
Speaker 1: would have to be confident, brash, kind of cocky but
Speaker 1: also funny and charming and gracious. Call it a Bruce
Speaker 1: Willis type. The role he was already playing at Cafe Central.
Speaker 1: I mean, he was so good at when lighting, and
Speaker 1: you know, it's really like, wow, that guy is doing that.
Speaker 1: He was funny, and he was sort of light on
Speaker 1: his feet. There was something kind of shocking about how
Speaker 1: great he was in that role. Just like that, Bruno's
Speaker 1: bar attending days were over, and so were Willis's days
Speaker 1: of blending into the background. It's a romantic comedy. Really
Speaker 1: looking forward to working with you, kid. Boom Lighting premiering Sunday,
Speaker 1: March three. Moonlighting premiered in March and was practically an
Speaker 1: overnight hit. Critics and audiences fell in love with David
Speaker 1: Addison and by extension, with Bruce Willis. Moonlighting didn't take
Speaker 1: itself seriously. Sometimes Willis would turn directly to the camera
Speaker 1: and break the fourth wall. You know, That's what I
Speaker 1: like about this place. You learned something new every day.
Speaker 1: But you get serious. I just had my hand on
Speaker 1: your behind. If I get any more serious, we're gonna
Speaker 1: moves to cable. A few shows. Few actors could get
Speaker 1: away with something so brazen, but viewers were willing to
Speaker 1: go with it. It scored multiple Emmy nominations, and by
Speaker 1: season three rose as high as number nine in the ratings.
Speaker 1: Moonlighting had a domino effect on Willis's career. During the
Speaker 1: first season of Moonlighting, Willis was familiar to just seventeen
Speaker 1: percent of the television viewing audience. Call it the oh
Speaker 1: that guy factor. By the second season, his familiarity had
Speaker 1: shot up to fifty seven percent. One of the people
Speaker 1: getting familiar with Willis was a man named Edgar Bronfman Jr.
Speaker 1: Bronfman was high up on the chain of command of Seagrams,
Speaker 1: the adult beverage company that was getting ready to launch
Speaker 1: a new alcohol brand, Seagram's Golden Wine Cooler. Bronfman needed
Speaker 1: a spokesman who was hip, recognizable to audiences, someone you'd
Speaker 1: want to hang out and have a drink with, and
Speaker 1: someone manly enough to make the idea of sipping wine
Speaker 1: coolers palatable or sexy. Even Moonlighting money was good, Seagram's
Speaker 1: money was better. After negotiating with Willis's agent, Arnold Ritkin,
Speaker 1: Bronkman agreed to pay Willis between five and seven million
Speaker 1: dollars for appearing in the Wine cooler ads over a
Speaker 1: two to three year period. Willis was all too happy
Speaker 1: to agree. He had, after all, plenty of experience selling
Speaker 1: drinks for a lot less in tips. Oddly enough, it
Speaker 1: was Cafe Central's old patron, Martha Frankel, who wound up
Speaker 1: writing some of the spots for Ogilvie and Mather, the
Speaker 1: ad agency behind the campaign. Those ads were a big
Speaker 1: deal for a while. Oh my god, I forgot about them.
Speaker 1: Oh you know, I think I wrote one of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I did. I worked for that company. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, I've got about that. Holy Moley. The ads
Speaker 1: featured Willis hanging out with his friends, sipping sea grooms
Speaker 1: and naturally playing the harmonica and the slogan this is
Speaker 1: where the fund starts. Another spot featured a then unknown
Speaker 1: Sharon Stone, and another ad centered around a fictional wedding
Speaker 1: and Willis's somewhat unethical attempts to pick up the bride.
Speaker 1: Didn't the toast serious golden to it sious, because that's
Speaker 1: the toasts. A commercial willis is now patented blend of humor, sex,
Speaker 1: appeal and charm was condensed into a perfect thirty seconds.
Speaker 1: It was a very nineteen eighties idea of what culture
Speaker 1: and advertisers believed men should look like and what they
Speaker 1: should sound like. Bruce was in control of the room,
Speaker 1: just like he'd been the m C of Cafe Central.
Speaker 1: The women in the commercials may not have literally swooned,
Speaker 1: but they all seemed charmed by Willis. By his boldness,
Speaker 1: sales of Seagram's went up, and people took to calling
Speaker 1: it somewhat disturbingly Bruce Juice. Bruce's Brunos harmonica was beginning
Speaker 1: to appear in other places. The musical interludes in Moonlighting,
Speaker 1: where Willis even played the harmonica and the pilot, attracted
Speaker 1: the attention of Motown Records president Jay Lasker. He invited
Speaker 1: Willis out to dinner and asked him a pointed question,
Speaker 1: did Willis want to record an album? The result was
Speaker 1: the Return of Bruno, a Motown Records album released in
Speaker 1: early seven that featured Willis backed by The Heaters, a
Speaker 1: band he had discovered in a North Hollywood bar. It
Speaker 1: was accompanied by an HBO special that was part music,
Speaker 1: part comedy, and featured Willis slipping into his harmonizing alter ego.
Speaker 1: He even created a fictional backstory celebrities like Michael J.
Speaker 1: Fox and Elton John appeared in the special to sing
Speaker 1: Bruno's praises. It was kind of like this is spinal
Speaker 1: tap for his character a mockumentary. Here's Ringo star delivering
Speaker 1: his line deadpan. Well, if it being for Bruno, there
Speaker 1: would have been no Beatles, and if not for Bruce,
Speaker 1: there might not have been a Haleywood either. The thing was,
Speaker 1: Bruce Willis hadn't exactly fantasized about being the face of
Speaker 1: wine coolers or even the face of a television network.
Speaker 1: Being seen, recognized, even hunted by photographers was not suited
Speaker 1: to his temperament. Sure, he was a natural on stage,
Speaker 1: but that didn't mean the spotlight always had to be
Speaker 1: on him, did it. Glenn Gordon Karen, who had launched
Speaker 1: Willis's career, once said he felt like he had to
Speaker 1: apologize to Willis for the crime, the crime of making
Speaker 1: him famous. That's how much Willis resisted being a familiar face,
Speaker 1: and a hint that he would go to some lengths
Speaker 1: to avoid it if he could. He can't go back
Speaker 1: to bartending, or maybe there's some way he can. Despite
Speaker 1: his discomfort with his growing fame, a lot was going
Speaker 1: right for Willis in. For one thing, he never got
Speaker 1: charged for his run in with the cops, and for another,
Speaker 1: he met Demi Moore. Moore had been working steadily, first
Speaker 1: in the soap opera General Hospital, and then in Hollywood
Speaker 1: in films like Saying Almost Fire and About Last Night.
Speaker 1: Raised partly in small Pennsylvania towns Cannonsburg and Charleroy before
Speaker 1: moving to California at age thirteen. She had a maturity
Speaker 1: on screen that seemed counter to her age. She was
Speaker 1: in her mid twenties. According to Moore's memoir Inside Out,
Speaker 1: she had just split from actor Emilio Estevez when she
Speaker 1: ran into will Us at a party. He was behind
Speaker 1: the bar, shaking out cocktails just for fun. He was well.
Speaker 1: He was Bruce Willis, charming and at least in this case, deferential.
Speaker 1: The more said at that point she hadn't seen Moonlighting,
Speaker 1: only his Seagram's commercials. Apparently Seagram's was where the funds started.
Speaker 1: He asked for a number, walked her to her car,
Speaker 1: and the two began dating. In November, they decided to
Speaker 1: get married. The two became one of Hollywood's power couples,
Speaker 1: doubly famous, but there was comfort in the fact that
Speaker 1: they each knew the other didn't want status or money,
Speaker 1: because each of them already had plenty of both. They
Speaker 1: also had something else in common. They were from small towns.
Speaker 1: Neither one had been raised, like Estevez, in a show
Speaker 1: biz family, and when talk turned to wanting to raise children,
Speaker 1: the idea of doing it among the artificial veneer of
Speaker 1: Hollywood seemed counterintuitive. Willis said as much in interview with
Speaker 1: The New York Times, where he described his dislike of
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. I don't live in l A because it's
Speaker 1: a pretty weird town, and I don't want to raise
Speaker 1: my kids here, he said. But if not California, then
Speaker 1: where where could Bruce Willis and Demi Moore retreat to
Speaker 1: that would allow them to escape what was becoming an
Speaker 1: increasing burden of being known. They soon got their answer,
Speaker 1: It just took Willis breaking a bone to realize it.
Speaker 1: In March seven, just two months before or Willis would
Speaker 1: be shoved into a police car in the Hollywood Hills,
Speaker 1: Willis went on vacation in Sun Valley, the posh ski
Speaker 1: resort in the Wood River Valley area of Idaho. Thanks
Speaker 1: to moonlighting, Willis was now in an exclusive club that
Speaker 1: gathered in the area, the club that welcomed successful people
Speaker 1: to fraternize in exclusive vacation spots. He tackled Sun Valley's
Speaker 1: ski slope with real zeal And on his first trip
Speaker 1: down that day, cruising over the immaculate white powder, he
Speaker 1: fell and broke his collar bone. While Willis was recovering
Speaker 1: hanging out with little else to do, he was properly
Speaker 1: introduced to Wood River Valley to catch him the bustling
Speaker 1: and expensive town where Clint Eastwood and Tom Hanks puttered around,
Speaker 1: and to a town about fifteen miles down the road, Haley, Idaho. Well,
Speaker 1: the north part around Catchem and Sun Valley. Um, those
Speaker 1: are the two uh urban I'll put that in quotes.
Speaker 1: Neither one are big enough to be urban, but they
Speaker 1: are large because of the tourist industry. And then about
Speaker 1: eleven miles south of that is where Haley is located.
Speaker 1: That's Tom Blanchard, a one time county commissioner and Haley historian.
Speaker 1: And as you move from north to south, you move
Speaker 1: from greater wealth to lesser wealth. And so the valley
Speaker 1: is structured in tiers in terms of its proximity to
Speaker 1: the Sun Valley destination resort, both in terms of wealth
Speaker 1: and class amenities, you know, other things that make a
Speaker 1: community function and viable. The further you get from the resort,
Speaker 1: the more modest your surroundings. Hailey was and is bordered
Speaker 1: by a lot of public land nestled near the Big
Speaker 1: Wood River. A simpler life echoed through its modest streets,
Speaker 1: where lumber yards once sold groceries, and some small buildings
Speaker 1: were erected from mail order kits. During Willis's accidental Hollywood hiatus,
Speaker 1: he probably drove past the Haley Public Library, the J. J.
Speaker 1: Tracy drug store, and the J. C. Fox Building, where
Speaker 1: a beloved town doctor once made house calls on a snowmobile.
Speaker 1: The Liberty Theater movie house, originally the site of an
Speaker 1: ice skating rink. Freedman Memorial Airport, helped shuttle the nearby
Speaker 1: movie stars to and from their ski retreats. It was
Speaker 1: love at first sight ready in Willis quietly purchased a
Speaker 1: twenty acre property on the edge of Haley, in a
Speaker 1: housing development known as Flying Heart Ranch. He officially became
Speaker 1: a resident of Haley. Willis and more were serious about
Speaker 1: small town ambitions. Hailey seemed custom made for them, especially
Speaker 1: for someone with a family. The community was known to
Speaker 1: have a very good school system, so that was an
Speaker 1: attractive thing right from the goal. At the time they
Speaker 1: moved there, Hailey was home to over three thousand residents,
Speaker 1: but at least for a little while, the fact that
Speaker 1: Willis was a new resident seemed to escape notice. Why
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not even sure when he came here.
Speaker 1: I didn't know somehow, remember being in the late eighties,
Speaker 1: but probably you know, I'd have to have to say
Speaker 1: some time in the early nineties nineties, when he started
Speaker 1: actually buying some Hailey property. It's probably my first awareness
Speaker 1: of it. But there was no parade, no newspaper notice,
Speaker 1: no grand proclamation that the two had arrived. If there
Speaker 1: had been, it probably would have driven Willis right back
Speaker 1: out of town. What he wanted was to be unseen,
Speaker 1: at least that's what he said he wanted, you know,
Speaker 1: the whole thing about he doesn't want to be recognized.
Speaker 1: I've been through it Spike Lee a bunch of times,
Speaker 1: and he says, you know, you pull down your baseball cap,
Speaker 1: you get on the subway, nobody knows who you are.
Speaker 1: I've been around de Niro, I've been around people who
Speaker 1: are very famous, and they can blend in. Bruce wanted
Speaker 1: to be noticed and left alone. I don't think that's
Speaker 1: possible to be noticed and be left alone, a paradox
Speaker 1: that would shape Bruce for the rest of his career.
Speaker 1: After Willis moved in, he approached his neighbor, a local
Speaker 1: lawyer named Ed Lawson. See Willis didn't really want a neighbor,
Speaker 1: any neighbors really. Lawson didn't even live on the lot.
Speaker 1: But if WILLI spot Lawson's lot, it would be a
Speaker 1: kind of buffer zone to keep out the prying eyes
Speaker 1: of the media. Lawson may or may not have hesitated,
Speaker 1: but this was the lesson of success. If Bruce Willis
Speaker 1: wants something, he can afford to be persistent. Lawson never
Speaker 1: confirmed the story, but the rumor in Haley was that
Speaker 1: laws and sold the lot to Willis and made two
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars in profit for Willis. There was no
Speaker 1: such thing as too high a price on privacy. Lawson
Speaker 1: actually did business with Willis again. Lawson and his wife
Speaker 1: Julie owned what was known as Freedman Mansion just off
Speaker 1: of Main Street in town. It was a grand, old
Speaker 1: place which once belonged to the Freedman family, who had
Speaker 1: helped shape Haley decades prior. Again, Willis approached Lawson and
Speaker 1: made him an offer he couldn't refuse, and he didn't.
Speaker 1: The mansion wasn't really for Bruce, though, it was for Demi.
Speaker 1: Before long, the mansion had over two thousand occupants, all
Speaker 1: of them were Moore's porcelain dolls. Willis had bought her
Speaker 1: a dollhouse, a really fancy dollhouse. This may have been
Speaker 1: the first sign that things in Haley we're going to
Speaker 1: start looking and feeling a little different. What Bruce Willis wants,
Speaker 1: Lawson said, Bruce Willis gets, and that would be especially
Speaker 1: true when John McClain would send Willis into new levels
Speaker 1: of wealth and influence, with a desire to escape getting
Speaker 1: even stronger. The time was coming when Willis would have
Speaker 1: the means to do a lot more in Haley than
Speaker 1: buy a dollhouse. In nine eighty six, Willis was spending
Speaker 1: his evenings recording his album The Return of Bruno. During
Speaker 1: the day he was shooting a movie called Blind Date,
Speaker 1: his first leading role and the first time audiences would
Speaker 1: be tempted by the idea of seeing the star of
Speaker 1: moonlighting on the big screen. It turned out not to
Speaker 1: be a very compelling offer. Blind Date starred Willis as
Speaker 1: Walter Davis, a mild mannered man who gets set up
Speaker 1: with a woman named Nadia played by Kim Bay singer.
Speaker 1: Nadia seems shy too, until she starts drinking. At that point,
Speaker 1: the movie turns into a mad cap comedy, with Willis
Speaker 1: trying frantically to keep up with an escalating series of
Speaker 1: events caused by the perpetually intoxicated Nadia. There have been
Speaker 1: high hopes for the movie, which was directed by Blake
Speaker 1: Edwards of the Pink Panther fame. Madonna and her then
Speaker 1: husband Sean Penn had only been set to star. Try Star,
Speaker 1: which was making the movie, was so keen on getting
Speaker 1: Willis that they gave the movie a green light without
Speaker 1: a completed script. Blind Date actually didn't do too badly.
Speaker 1: It opened in March at number one, knocking Lethal Weapon
Speaker 1: off its perch, but it was a busy season at
Speaker 1: the movies, with films like Platoon dominating the conversation and
Speaker 1: guaranteed hits like Beverly Hill's Cop Two taking over the
Speaker 1: summer months. Blind Date did edge out Spaceballs, making around
Speaker 1: thirty nine million dollars, but it couldn't outpace hits like
Speaker 1: Dirty Dancing or RoboCop. A second movie with the Edwards
Speaker 1: Willis combo, a Western titled Sunset, fared poorly too. It
Speaker 1: was released the following year and barely made five million dollars.
Speaker 1: At least he got to ride a horse, though maybe
Speaker 1: even got to keep the cowboy outfit for later. But
Speaker 1: so far, audiences were uncertain about Willis on the big screen,
Speaker 1: and increasingly they were having concerns about Moonlighting two. The
Speaker 1: central conceit of the show was the ongoing sexual tension
Speaker 1: between David Addison and Maddie Hayes, and the will they
Speaker 1: or won't they conflict that fueled their on screen relationship.
Speaker 1: In March, viewers found out they would new Moonlighting, I
Speaker 1: feel reckless, and suddenly the air had left the room.
Speaker 1: The two were now a couple, an item, and all
Speaker 1: of that dramatic tension evaporated. So did ratings for decades afterward,
Speaker 1: Whenever TV producers would talk about unconsummated sexual tension on screen,
Speaker 1: they referenced Moonlighting as a kind of cautionary tale. Before
Speaker 1: jumping the shark entered the pop culture lexicon, you would
Speaker 1: we want to pull a Moonlighting and a racist shows
Speaker 1: reason for existing. It wasn't yet time for a sad
Speaker 1: Harmonica solo, But this was a turning point in the
Speaker 1: career of Bruce Willis. Moonlighting wouldn't be around forever. His
Speaker 1: first big screen role hadn't made much of an impression.
Speaker 1: Sunset wasn't going to help. Maybe that's why Willis's agent,
Speaker 1: Arnold Rifkin decided not to play it cool when twentieth
Speaker 1: Century Fox came around wondering if Willis might be interested
Speaker 1: in replacing Frank Sinatra. In ninety eight, Sinatra had starred
Speaker 1: in The Detective, an adaptation of a novel by author
Speaker 1: Roderick Thorpe. It was a pot boiler about a detective
Speaker 1: hot on a murder case while dealing with marital issues
Speaker 1: at home. Nothing to groundbreaking, But when Fox acquired the
Speaker 1: right to Thorpe's sequel, Nothing Las Forever over ten years later,
Speaker 1: they were contractually obliged to offer the lead role to Sinatra,
Speaker 1: but Sinatra was roughly seventy at the time, a problem
Speaker 1: for what The role would require a lot of action,
Speaker 1: a lot of guns, a lot of crawling through air
Speaker 1: dunce in the book, Sinatra's character joe Leland, is up
Speaker 1: against terrorists who take over a high rise building. So
Speaker 1: Fox started looking for other actors. Some of the names
Speaker 1: were predictable. Arnold Schwarzenegger, he said, no, Cafe Central customer,
Speaker 1: Al Pacino. No. The list of people who turned the
Speaker 1: movie down got longer and longer until Fox began talking
Speaker 1: to Arnold Rifkin, who in turn started talking about Bruce Willis.
Speaker 1: Instead of acknowledging Willis's star might be cooling, Rifkin took
Speaker 1: the opposite approach. He demanded Fox pay Willis five millillion
Speaker 1: dollars for the lead role, which was no longer joe Leland,
Speaker 1: but John McClain Fox was taken aback. At the time
Speaker 1: that kind of money it was virtually unheard of. Sylvester
Speaker 1: Stallone had gotten seven million dollars to play Rambo in
Speaker 1: the sequel with the laborious title of Rambo Colon First
Speaker 1: Blood Part two, but those kinds of salaries were unusual
Speaker 1: except for the biggest of the big screen guys, and
Speaker 1: this was the eighties, Television was still seen as the
Speaker 1: lesser of the two mediums. Willis was a small screen guy.
Speaker 1: Fox countered Rifkin kept shaking his head. It was five
Speaker 1: million dollars or have a nice day. Fox blinked. They
Speaker 1: made the deal, and the entire film industry took notice. Sure,
Speaker 1: Bruce Willis was popular, had charisma, but five million dollars
Speaker 1: for the moonlighting guy. Willis began shooting Nothing Lasts Forever
Speaker 1: under its new title die Hard, Written by Jeb Stewart
Speaker 1: and Stephen Ee SUSA and directed by John McTiernan. It
Speaker 1: became a lean, taught action thriller about an East Coast
Speaker 1: cop up against the droll villain Hans Gruber played by
Speaker 1: Alan Rickman. The craftsmanship of the movie, the dialogue, the
Speaker 1: action scenes, the acting was firing on all cylinders. Production
Speaker 1: went smoothly, although in one stunt Willis only narrowly avoided
Speaker 1: disaster while jumping off a building tied to a fire hose.
Speaker 1: It looked goal though Sunset was released while die Hard
Speaker 1: was in production and it had bombed. An early trailer
Speaker 1: for die Hard was met with a cool reception from audiences.
Speaker 1: Was Willis trying to be arnold? The studio kept playing
Speaker 1: with Willis's image on the posters, shrinking him down and
Speaker 1: making the building bigger, Willis was in danger of being
Speaker 1: outshone by a high rise. No one was really sure
Speaker 1: what was going to happen. Until die Hard opened in July.
Speaker 1: It was possible Fox had made a terrible decision. Instead,
Speaker 1: die Hard exploded. It was all here, the everyman appeal,
Speaker 1: the regular body fit but not superhuman, and most of
Speaker 1: all of vulnerability. Looking back now, it's easy to see
Speaker 1: Willis was a kind of modern progression of male action heroes.
Speaker 1: Before him stood men with four percent body fat and
Speaker 1: wooden line deliveries. Willis humanized action stars. After John McClean
Speaker 1: walked through broken glass on bare feet, you knew you
Speaker 1: weren't in the company of a guy with all the answers, John,
Speaker 1: John McClean, you're still with us, ye little thing, Vidico,
Speaker 1: I'd rather be in Philadelphia. Chalk up two more vague guys.
Speaker 1: Well the boys down here'll be glad to hear that.
Speaker 1: You know, we've got a pool going on. You what
Speaker 1: kind of odds am I getting? You don't want to know?
Speaker 1: Pulled me down for I'm good for all the casual
Speaker 1: irreverence that actors like Chris Pratt and Ryan Reynolds inject
Speaker 1: into movies today. Willis did it first. With the success
Speaker 1: of die Hard, came a new level of stardom when
Speaker 1: that vastly exceeded what David Addison, Bruno and a wine
Speaker 1: cooler had afforded him. In Moonlighting, he played this sort
Speaker 1: of romantic league that that wasn't really a romantic league.
Speaker 1: But when the die Hard movies came out and he
Speaker 1: was huge, and he was you know, he's sort of
Speaker 1: like this average guy, average looking guy that all of
Speaker 1: a sudden everybody wanted a piece of men wanted to
Speaker 1: be friends with him, and women wanted to sleep with him,
Speaker 1: which I don't think had been happening for him before that.
Speaker 1: Willis obviously enjoyed being a matinee idol. It was what
Speaker 1: he wanted. The dough was good too, but he bristled
Speaker 1: at the off screen attention. It was like he went
Speaker 1: from obscurity. You know, it's one thing to be the
Speaker 1: hot blood tender at Cafe Central. It's another for people
Speaker 1: to recognize you on the street. You have to either
Speaker 1: be very humble, or you have to like it, or
Speaker 1: you have to turn it off some now, and you know,
Speaker 1: I've been around people who do all those six You know,
Speaker 1: some days they're okay with it, and some days now
Speaker 1: they want to take their kids to the park if
Speaker 1: they don't want to sign autographs for you, And I
Speaker 1: understand it. But he was like he was surly before
Speaker 1: before being surly was okay. Die Hard became the seventh
Speaker 1: highest grossing movie of ahead of Tom Cruise's Cocktail and
Speaker 1: even Stallone's more tersely titled Rambo three. It also became
Speaker 1: a genre unto itself, with dozens of movies copying it's
Speaker 1: contained action premise formula. Speed is die Hard on a
Speaker 1: bus under siege? Was die Hard on a boat? Die
Speaker 1: Hard to released in? Was die Hard at an airport.
Speaker 1: The film didn't just change Hollywood filmmaking or star salaries.
Speaker 1: It fundamentally changed the career of Bruce Willis, who now
Speaker 1: had the momentum of a massive box office hit behind him.
Speaker 1: Moonlighting would last just one more season. There would be
Speaker 1: no more commercials, not until Japan came calling with some
Speaker 1: lucrative offers anyway, and financially, Bruce Willis had positioned himself
Speaker 1: not only to be a well paid actor, but an
Speaker 1: incredibly well paid actor, one wealthy enough to buy not
Speaker 1: just a nice private property in Haley, but a good
Speaker 1: chunk of Haley itself. In effect, Bruce Willis fell in
Speaker 1: love twice in seven, once with More and again with Haley, Idaho.
Speaker 1: And life was good. Haley was good. But as Willis
Speaker 1: grew more and more successful, as more and more studio
Speaker 1: paychecks were cashed, his desire to step outside the boundaries
Speaker 1: of his home and make his mark, and Haley grew
Speaker 1: and it wasn't going to stop with a giant dollhouse.
Speaker 1: Haley was, for his purposes, the perfect town, because Haley
Speaker 1: had something that made it unique, made it unlike any
Speaker 1: other remote part of the country Willis could have retreated to.
Speaker 1: It was a place that had an unspoken agreement to
Speaker 1: protect the famous, to let them live in relative peace
Speaker 1: and quiet, to be noticed and left alone. The question
Speaker 1: was would Bruce Willis do the same for them next time?
Speaker 1: On Haleywood. It wasn't really very much of a viable town,
Speaker 1: and we're empty storefronts in downtown Haley. And then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden we got Bruce Willis and somebody came
Speaker 1: into my office, you know, to get your camera. Go
Speaker 1: out into the alley. Bruce Willis has carried two by
Speaker 1: fours over his shoulder that they helped the construction war workers,
Speaker 1: and then he built right downtown Haley, and he spent
Speaker 1: a couple of million bucks at least on renovating him.
Speaker 1: It's stuck out like a sore thumb because it's a
Speaker 1: kind of thing you would see in a major city.
Speaker 1: Everything else is, you know, almost tie up your horse outside.
Speaker 1: Haleywood is hosted by Danish Schwartz. This show is written
Speaker 1: by Jake Rosson, Editing, sound design and mixing by me
Speaker 1: Josh Fisher, Additional editing by Mary do original music by
Speaker 1: Natasha Jacobs, mixing by Jeremy Thal, Research and fact checking
Speaker 1: by Jake Rosson, Austin Thompson and Marissa Brown. Show logo
Speaker 1: by Lucy Quentinia. Our senior producer is Ryan Murdoch and
Speaker 1: our executive producer is Jason English. Special thanks to the
Speaker 1: people of Hailey, Idaho and all those who shared their stories.
Speaker 1: Haleywood is a production of Heart Radio. Until next Time,
Speaker 1: m HM.