Speaker 1: This is an I Heart original January. The scene at
Speaker 1: Magic Valley Mall in Twin Falls, Idaho can only be
Speaker 1: described as bedlam for one thing. It's a mall in
Speaker 1: the nineties. The windows are shiny, the floor is polished,
Speaker 1: the water fountain is erupting. It's busy with shoppers streaming
Speaker 1: in and out of stores like Hallmark Software, et cetera,
Speaker 1: and Walden Books. Today at Magic Valley Mall is different.
Speaker 1: It's not full of customers, at least not strictly customers.
Speaker 1: It's packed with hopefuls. That's the word of the movie
Speaker 1: industry likes to use for actors attending open auditions. It's
Speaker 1: a little more polite than the other phrase, cattle calls.
Speaker 1: Somewhere in the middle of Idaho is a group of
Speaker 1: almost three thousand people gathering near a shop Co department store,
Speaker 1: hoping to snag apart in the next Bruce Willis Blockbuster,
Speaker 1: which is going to be shooting right here in the
Speaker 1: Gem State. Suddenly there's even more commotion. Bruce Willis has
Speaker 1: materialized out of thin air. He's submitting to the adoration
Speaker 1: of the people, customers and fans and aspiring actors alike.
Speaker 1: He's signing autographs and posing for pictures with disposable cameras.
Speaker 1: Bruce Willis is live in the flesh in the mall,
Speaker 1: even consent to some interviews with television reporters there to
Speaker 1: cover the casting call. That probably should have been the
Speaker 1: first clue that something was a little off. After about
Speaker 1: an hour of this, another Willis appears. It's David Willis,
Speaker 1: the movie stars brother and a producer on his new film.
Speaker 1: David looks at Bruce, Bruce looks at David. It David
Speaker 1: realizes that this isn't Bruce Willis. It's a Willis impostor
Speaker 1: who decided to have some fun with fans and journalists.
Speaker 1: It took Willis's brother to call him out and have
Speaker 1: him escorted off the premises. It's a peculiar story, but
Speaker 1: the people hoping for a chance at stardom, at least
Speaker 1: a brush with stardom, aren't really attuned to that. They
Speaker 1: don't know the real Bruce Willis isn't about to make
Speaker 1: another die hard. They don't know he's about to embark
Speaker 1: on what is easily the strangest, riskiest project of his career.
Speaker 1: But Bruce Willis is so sure he's got a hit
Speaker 1: on his hands that he's decided to do something virtually
Speaker 1: unheard of for actors to self financed the project. He's
Speaker 1: producing it, starring in it, filming it just an hour
Speaker 1: from his house, and recruiting Idahoans to be a part
Speaker 1: to them. If it works, Bruce Willis will not only
Speaker 1: bring a financial windfall to Idaho, he'll change the way
Speaker 1: movies are made forever. If it doesn't, well, maybe he
Speaker 1: can blame it on the impostor 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 six a Bruce
Speaker 1: Willis production. From the public's perspective, there weren't many downsides
Speaker 1: to being Bruce Willis in the nineties. He was a
Speaker 1: bankable star in action movies. He was married to Demi Moore,
Speaker 1: and he had a getaway in Haley that had been
Speaker 1: tailored to suit his every whim, from his own movie
Speaker 1: theater to his own diner. But Willis was getting frustrated.
Speaker 1: He'd been churning out movies like Mercury Rising, where he
Speaker 1: protected antistic child who had cracked a top secret government code,
Speaker 1: and Color of Night, which gave audience as their first
Speaker 1: ever glimpse of Bruce Willis's genitals. Audiences would have seen more,
Speaker 1: but the ratings Board threatened to give the movie an
Speaker 1: NC seventeen classification. Not long after, Willis announced he was
Speaker 1: getting bored with action movies, with genre movies, with not
Speaker 1: being allowed to show his penis for the sake of art.
Speaker 1: He hadn't been celebrated for his acting prowess since Pulp Fiction,
Speaker 1: in which he played boxer Butch Coolidge for director Quentin Tarantino.
Speaker 1: Willis bristled when people referred to him as an action hero.
Speaker 1: He'd asked them what they meant by that by action hero.
Speaker 1: He said it in italics like it was an insult.
Speaker 1: He said that in action movies he didn't feel like
Speaker 1: he was doing his best work, so he decided to
Speaker 1: take more control. He knew the best place to demonstrate
Speaker 1: his acting ability was where he had gotten started, on
Speaker 1: stage before the world was introduced to Bruce Willis in
Speaker 1: Moonlighting in nineteen eighty five, he had gotten a break
Speaker 1: that was in many ways just as important, just as big.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty four, he was cast in an off
Speaker 1: Broadway production, A Fool for Love. Playwright Sam Shepard had
Speaker 1: debuted it the year prior. It's about two lovers in
Speaker 1: a desert motel, Eddie and May, who slowly pick away
Speaker 1: at one another emotionally. That year it was a finalist
Speaker 1: for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. Didn't win, But in
Speaker 1: the case of the Pulleitzer, it really is a pretty
Speaker 1: big deal just to be nominated. Willis knew the plays
Speaker 1: lead actor will Patton, who suggested Willis be his understudy.
Speaker 1: When Patton left the show, Willis stepped in. It was
Speaker 1: Willis's biggest part yet, but after roughly a hundred performances,
Speaker 1: the plays producers took Willis aside and told him they
Speaker 1: needed an actor with more presents, an established star maybe,
Speaker 1: they said, a movie star. Ouch. They chose Aidan Quinn.
Speaker 1: That must have stung a little, but good things came
Speaker 1: out of that short run anyway. It helped land him
Speaker 1: an agent, which helped land him auditions and eventually led
Speaker 1: to moonlighting. So there's no question the stage world was
Speaker 1: on his mind. When Bruce Willis moved to Hayley. Willis
Speaker 1: had even made The Mint, his bar and nightclub, available
Speaker 1: to a local production. I and a friend had written
Speaker 1: display about our time in New York City, and we
Speaker 1: offered it to them, saying we would do it um
Speaker 1: kind of a musical comedy if you will. That's David Blampete,
Speaker 1: an actor and one time resident of Sun Valley, and
Speaker 1: we would with his dinner theater, so that would open
Speaker 1: up his restaurant and give him a chance to show
Speaker 1: what he was doing there and us a chance to
Speaker 1: do the show show called two More Laps L A
Speaker 1: p s E. It was pretty it was. It was
Speaker 1: amazing little thing to be able to do. But it
Speaker 1: was Bruce, and you know, they wanted something, and they
Speaker 1: knew that we were around and been around and were
Speaker 1: local talents. So they got a nice audience. We did
Speaker 1: one show and it was it was a great experience
Speaker 1: and it went pretty well, except David scared the out
Speaker 1: of Bruce Willis without meaning to. I remember we were
Speaker 1: trying to rehearse and set up getting ready, and I
Speaker 1: needed to ask Bruce if I could use their green room.
Speaker 1: He called it, which would be for when he has
Speaker 1: his big entertainment. When they said, he just left, and
Speaker 1: I went running out the door and saw him in
Speaker 1: his truck and water pretty after him, and I'll never
Speaker 1: forget to look on the space. You would have thought
Speaker 1: he was being stalked or some was trying to rob him.
Speaker 1: He was just shook up that someone was chasing him
Speaker 1: down the street. I apologized and said I just nearly
Speaker 1: get need to get his permission to use the green room,
Speaker 1: and he said, of course, um. And that's really how
Speaker 1: I remember. He was always pretty much willing to to
Speaker 1: to give to the community and to people who worked
Speaker 1: with him and whatever. I mean. They made a big
Speaker 1: difference to Hayley, Idaho, and to my theater career, if
Speaker 1: you will. In the valley. David had come to the
Speaker 1: area from the East coast back in bringing his love
Speaker 1: of theater with him. That was kind of thinking of
Speaker 1: going to Seattle and trying my luck there in theater um,
Speaker 1: and then just decided to know this was a good place.
Speaker 1: And so with this these friends of mine formed a
Speaker 1: company called New Theater Company. The New Theater Company put
Speaker 1: on local productions, nothing big, but good, solid, well produced plays.
Speaker 1: What David really wanted to do was one about Ernest Hemingway,
Speaker 1: the famous writer was also a one time resident of Ketchum,
Speaker 1: not far from Haley. I was asked because I've been
Speaker 1: told I looked a lot like a young Hemingway to
Speaker 1: do something um about Hemingway, And if I found a
Speaker 1: show I liked, I thought I might do it. Once
Speaker 1: David found the right script, he tried to get the
Speaker 1: show off the ground. I wonder if Bruce or to
Speaker 1: me might be interested in getting involved, and I remember
Speaker 1: a very brief conversation and these you know said well
Speaker 1: not at this time. Uh. Not much later he brought
Speaker 1: in these old I guess schoolmates that had a theater
Speaker 1: company in North Carolina called Company of Fools. And that's
Speaker 1: when the renovation of the Liberty Theater became clear that
Speaker 1: he wanted to do live theater, not just a movie theater.
Speaker 1: And obviously with with Bruce and Demi's name behind it,
Speaker 1: um yeah they they funding became a little more difficult
Speaker 1: to get from my company. Um but we we coexisted
Speaker 1: for a few years. It was hard to compete with
Speaker 1: a theater company that had Bruce Willis's money to spend.
Speaker 1: David would have to hit the streets for fundraising. Willis
Speaker 1: just wrote a check. But I did pay attention to
Speaker 1: what they were doing. They were there were some interesting,
Speaker 1: interesting new stuff and very I mean very innovative for
Speaker 1: for Haley. They did even they put in an aquatic
Speaker 1: area around the stage for their production of The Tendest
Speaker 1: so that they could get in out of water. It
Speaker 1: was an astounding renovation. I mean, if if you could
Speaker 1: have seen, it was just a concrete square movie theater.
Speaker 1: I mean, there was there was nothing about it that
Speaker 1: said really welcoming theater um. But they just decided they
Speaker 1: were going to make it the center of Hailey culture.
Speaker 1: And they did. They did a very, very very nice job,
Speaker 1: and I saw many productions there. I even saw while
Speaker 1: Robin Williams were warming up the act the Liberty decided
Speaker 1: to make a splash by mounting Fool for Love, a
Speaker 1: play Willis loved but which hadn't always loved him back.
Speaker 1: This time, he was in his early forties, the seasoned
Speaker 1: movie star, the off Broadway producers had wanted him to
Speaker 1: be years ago, and he owned the theater. No one
Speaker 1: could fire him. Movies, Willis said, were take after take
Speaker 1: after take until everyone was happy. The stage was immediate.
Speaker 1: You didn't have to wait for test screenings or opening
Speaker 1: weekend to figure out if something worked, if it was funny,
Speaker 1: people laughed, if it was sad, people cried more than that.
Speaker 1: It was dramatic. Not dramatic because of machine guns, but
Speaker 1: dramatic because of its emotional heft. Even though Willis had
Speaker 1: been pigeonholed as an action hero, that wasn't why he
Speaker 1: got into acting. There was a real performer under the
Speaker 1: bloodied muscle shirts and one liners, one that increasingly wanted
Speaker 1: and needed a way to feel that again. If the
Speaker 1: Mint gave Willis his musical outlet, the Liberty would prove
Speaker 1: his dramatic chops. He could have done the play for
Speaker 1: big money in New York City, but New York City
Speaker 1: wasn't Hailey, it wasn't home. According to reviewers, Willis was dazzling.
Speaker 1: His Eddie was pugnacious, desperate, commanding. Willis performed Fool for
Speaker 1: Love over a dozen times that spring and summer of
Speaker 1: ticket sales were always brisk. As reclusive as Willis could be,
Speaker 1: The Liberty was the ideal place to showcase his craft,
Speaker 1: not his die hard craft with explosions, but the craft
Speaker 1: that had made him want to be an actor in
Speaker 1: the first place. But there had to be a way
Speaker 1: to marry his dramatic sensibilities with a major feature film right,
Speaker 1: a movie done on his turns, a movie where he
Speaker 1: had full creative control, just like he had on stage,
Speaker 1: where he didn't have to point a gun at anyone.
Speaker 1: And that's how Bruce Willis met Kurt Vonnegut. Kurt Vonneguet
Speaker 1: had probably never seen a die Hard movie, but Willis
Speaker 1: had read plenty of Vonnegut. His irreverent satires like Slaughterhouse
Speaker 1: Five combine a droll humor with a keen perception of
Speaker 1: the human condition. Vonnegut's seventy three novel Breakfast of Champions
Speaker 1: had been kicking around Hollywood for decades. A dark comedy,
Speaker 1: it tells the story of a car dealer named Dwyane
Speaker 1: Hoover who gradually loses his mind after meeting a science
Speaker 1: fiction author named Kilgore Trout. If that promise sounds a
Speaker 1: little hard to grasp, then you know how studio executives felt,
Speaker 1: like most of Vonnegut's work. Breakfast of Champions was filed
Speaker 1: away as a project that was virtually unfilmable. It was
Speaker 1: too insulated, too much of an interior character study to
Speaker 1: be visualized, But that didn't dissuade director Alan Rudolph from
Speaker 1: trying Rudolph acquired the rights to Breakfast of Champions and
Speaker 1: spent years trying to get a feature film. He couldn't
Speaker 1: manage it. It was impenetrable. No one wanted to finance
Speaker 1: a movie about a car dealer who had a breakdown
Speaker 1: because he met a man named Kilgore Trout. But Rudolph
Speaker 1: got a break in. He directed a film titled Mortal Thoughts,
Speaker 1: a thriller about a woman who asked to fight off
Speaker 1: charges that she killed a friend's abusive husband. The movie
Speaker 1: starred Bruce Willis's wife, Demi Moore. It also co starred
Speaker 1: Willis as Jimmy, the man Moore's character is alleged to
Speaker 1: have killed. Over the course of filming, Willis became friendly
Speaker 1: with Rudolph. At some point, Rudolf mentioned he had the
Speaker 1: rights to Breakfast of Champions. He'd even written a script,
Speaker 1: which was now over twenty years old. In the throes
Speaker 1: of his stardom in the nine nineties, It's possible Willis
Speaker 1: didn't think too much about it at the time, but
Speaker 1: as the nineties went on and more and more guns
Speaker 1: were shoved into his hand on movie posters, Willis thought
Speaker 1: about alan Rudolph about Kurt Vonnegut and about taking a chance. Well,
Speaker 1: that's why. That's why I believed it was it was
Speaker 1: a pet project. It was his to begin with, rather
Speaker 1: than signing him into it. It was his pet, just
Speaker 1: something for him to be able to spread his wings
Speaker 1: as an actor, to producer, to the director. Because Bruce
Speaker 1: Willis wanted to have considerable influence over the movie, he
Speaker 1: decided to ensure he had complete ownership of it. His
Speaker 1: agents financed it through a complex system of pre selling
Speaker 1: foreign distribution rights and using that to secure a loan,
Speaker 1: and when the production still needed money, Willis used his own.
Speaker 1: This is not something actors do like ever, it must
Speaker 1: have been a labor of law of you know Kurt
Speaker 1: Vonnegut novel all that. Yeah, most of them are looking
Speaker 1: for other people's money, you know, opm. That's Peg Owens,
Speaker 1: the one time film commissioner for Idaho. Peg came to
Speaker 1: the state from California, where she had been a photographer
Speaker 1: for tourism promotion. I did that and I handled film
Speaker 1: permits and back then, um, oh gosh, I think the
Speaker 1: biggest one was I'm sorry, this is quite quite a
Speaker 1: while ago. Um, a Mel Gibson movie. What was the
Speaker 1: one where he was the crazy detective lethal Weapon. Yes,
Speaker 1: the first lethal weapon was filmed in my jurisdiction. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: um so I was. I was in Long Beach when
Speaker 1: they filmed lethal Weapon. Anyway, So I went from photography
Speaker 1: to learning how to handle a film production in a jurisdiction,
Speaker 1: knowing the laws of my jurisdiction and what what they
Speaker 1: it allow and not allowing where they park and all
Speaker 1: of that stuff, all of all of the logistics. And
Speaker 1: so I did that for three and a half years,
Speaker 1: and then I moved up to Idaho and unbeknounced seen.
Speaker 1: At the time, Idaho was creating a film commission job
Speaker 1: um the title of film Specialist at the Department of Commerce,
Speaker 1: and I landed that job and held it for twenty
Speaker 1: six years. So that's how peg Owents found herself amidst
Speaker 1: a Bruce Willis production in Idaho, one in which he
Speaker 1: could essentially veto anyone else. Taking the level of control
Speaker 1: Willis wanted comes with risks, and once you're on top
Speaker 1: in Hollywood, there's no reason to take those risks yourself.
Speaker 1: That's the job of studios and production companies. But Willis
Speaker 1: wasn't one for conventional wisdom. He formed Flying Heart Films,
Speaker 1: named after the Flying Heart Ranch housing subdivision where he
Speaker 1: lived in Haley, and as the uncredited executive of producer,
Speaker 1: and partial financier of the movie, Willis could determine where
Speaker 1: it was shot. The story was set in fictional Midland
Speaker 1: City in all American town Twin Falls, Idaho was the
Speaker 1: perfect stand in for Midland City. Willis thought it had
Speaker 1: beautiful backdrops like Campas Prairie and a little further afield
Speaker 1: the Craters of the Moon National Monument. Best of all,
Speaker 1: it was only seventy miles from his house, an easy
Speaker 1: commute in one of his classic cars. If it worked out,
Speaker 1: Willis indicated he'd shoot one movie a year right in Idaho.
Speaker 1: Shooting a movie in the state wasn't unheard of. Michael
Speaker 1: Chimino shot some of the highly vilified Heaven's Gate there
Speaker 1: in Napoleon Dynamite would be shot there a few years
Speaker 1: later in two thousand three, most notably, the volcano disaster
Speaker 1: movie Dante's Peak was filmed there in a town named Wallace.
Speaker 1: That production was massive. It had a budget of over
Speaker 1: ninety million dollars. That was the one that spent the
Speaker 1: most money. It was here the longest UM. I only
Speaker 1: really showed them to locations, and they picked one of
Speaker 1: those two. Um. It was fascinating to watch what they
Speaker 1: did to the city of Wallace to make it look
Speaker 1: like it had been asked by a volcano. They put
Speaker 1: up frames with like cardboard so they can then spread
Speaker 1: it was really like newspaper pulp that was then sprayed
Speaker 1: all over these kind of curved things so that it
Speaker 1: would look like it was a pile of ash when
Speaker 1: it was really a wooden frame covered by uh newspaper.
Speaker 1: Newspaper pulp was the ash yep nine million dollars. It
Speaker 1: was really a very pleasant um experience because the production
Speaker 1: company was great and the town was great as a
Speaker 1: filming location. Idaho had a lot to offer. From that perspective.
Speaker 1: Peg wasn't surprised Willis wanted to mount production there. Oh well,
Speaker 1: I thought it was a wonderful idea. You know, we
Speaker 1: have had a number of celebrities living here that chose
Speaker 1: not to work here, and so it was very hopeful
Speaker 1: at the time that he would not only do that one,
Speaker 1: but would bring more. Willis believed shooting in Idaho would
Speaker 1: bring an economic boost to the local community. Cast and
Speaker 1: crew were there to spend money at stores, on hotels everywhere.
Speaker 1: All told, the impact might amount to around two million dollars.
Speaker 1: I think the difficulty in people like Bruce Willis trying
Speaker 1: to make films in the place in which they lived is,
Speaker 1: first of all, I has to match you know, I
Speaker 1: mean die Hard would not have matched Anhing in Idaho, right,
Speaker 1: So there has to be a script match. All of
Speaker 1: that has to work first. But then you come upon
Speaker 1: a huge problem, and that is you have to just
Speaker 1: about flying. Everybody right in any big movie is going
Speaker 1: to bring all their principles. The cast was full of
Speaker 1: big names like Willis who would play Dwayne Hoover, and
Speaker 1: Albert Finney who would play Killgore Trout, as well as
Speaker 1: Nick Nolty and Owen Wilson, but they also wanted to
Speaker 1: hire local talent to fill out smaller parts. To do that,
Speaker 1: Willis and the production put out a casting call. Extras
Speaker 1: is different extras you get anywhere. Extras might as well
Speaker 1: be a lamp post. They're just moving lamp posts, right hey,
Speaker 1: walk here, walk there. The extras is totally different at
Speaker 1: the Magic Valley Mall, Once the dust settled on the
Speaker 1: impostor stunt Idahoan's laid out there credentials. A realtor brought
Speaker 1: his wedding portrait and his World War Two medal to
Speaker 1: show casting directors. Another man was a dry waller who
Speaker 1: said he had once played Ronald McDonald. One actor who
Speaker 1: didn't have to go to the mall was David Blampie,
Speaker 1: the guy who once made Bruce Willis think that he
Speaker 1: was about to get mumped. I got a call from
Speaker 1: the casting director who said, and I said, well, why
Speaker 1: are you calling me? I mean, I'm very pleased and
Speaker 1: would love the audition. And she said, well, Bruce wanted
Speaker 1: to have all of his friends the audition. And I thought,
Speaker 1: well that's really nice. I didn't think of myself as
Speaker 1: a personal friend of Bruce, just what I mean, he
Speaker 1: knew who I was and knew what I was doing,
Speaker 1: so so I appreciated being included in the audition process.
Speaker 1: And the couple of roles that I auditioned for and
Speaker 1: and and they called me back. One I thought was
Speaker 1: pretty good. It was a state trooper or whatever. But
Speaker 1: because whatever the scene was, there was a car that
Speaker 1: almost knocked the guy off the road, they wanted to
Speaker 1: get a stunt man instead of using an actor for
Speaker 1: them their role. I thought, well, I'm disappointed, but well
Speaker 1: it's that's life. And then they called me and offered
Speaker 1: me um a role as a police officer who's arresting
Speaker 1: m m M names. I hated kill Gore Trout. His
Speaker 1: first scene, which had him acting opposite Albert Finney, had
Speaker 1: problems with extras not doing what they were supposed to do.
Speaker 1: David's head is in the frame, but not his face.
Speaker 1: He was disappointed, but then he got another call David Blocker.
Speaker 1: He was the producer of this film, and he introduced us.
Speaker 1: It's David Blocker, and we noticed you didn't get any
Speaker 1: on camera time, wondering if you wanted to do another part.
Speaker 1: So April one, I was waiting from my April first jokes,
Speaker 1: I said, who who sent you? Who told you to
Speaker 1: do this? Who is this? So I didn't believe him.
Speaker 1: I did not believe him, and he was very gracious
Speaker 1: and said, I'll have the castarter call you. And at
Speaker 1: that point I went, oh, okay, yeah, do that. Two
Speaker 1: minutes later, a very irate casting director you said I
Speaker 1: have to call you. You You don't believe David Blockers giving
Speaker 1: you a role in the movie, So I'm sorry, it's
Speaker 1: April first. What did I know? So I have two
Speaker 1: speaking roles in Breakfast Champions. I got to play a
Speaker 1: prison guard in the next part of the film, and
Speaker 1: it was on camera, So I owe that. I am sure.
Speaker 1: To the lovely Albert Finney, who knew I was disappointed
Speaker 1: and probably sitting in screening, said why don't you call
Speaker 1: this guy? The production had other issues. At the auto
Speaker 1: dealer doubling as Dwayne Hoover's dealership in the movie, real
Speaker 1: life customers looking for a new or used car had
Speaker 1: to walk around police barricades. A giant billboard of Bruce
Speaker 1: Willis in character as Dwayne Hoover was installed overlooking the
Speaker 1: highway in town. It was for a scene where Hoover
Speaker 1: has to navigate a massive highway pile up involving fifty
Speaker 1: five cars to achieve that the crew shut down a
Speaker 1: major highway artery, diverting traffic through a detour. Locals were
Speaker 1: not amused, so it was traffic jams, sometimes probably in
Speaker 1: confusion that the street was closed or whatever. And you know, um,
Speaker 1: how do I put it? You know, there's a there's
Speaker 1: a simplicity to life in in the in Idaho. There
Speaker 1: was always a sense, even when I first got there,
Speaker 1: of feeling like I was invading their territory. You know.
Speaker 1: I guess they've always felt that if somebody was coming in,
Speaker 1: whether it was the Sun Valley Company or something to
Speaker 1: build and buy and take up land and and push
Speaker 1: people socially away, if you will, just that's how they felt.
Speaker 1: They felt that, you know, their life was being taken
Speaker 1: over by these Hollywood stars and people coming into Sun
Speaker 1: Valley to a ski or whatever. Um So, yeah, Twin Falls.
Speaker 1: I don't think they were thrilled that that was happening
Speaker 1: in Twin Falls. What Willis hadn't necessarily realized was that
Speaker 1: not everyone in Sun Valley and Twin Falls was going
Speaker 1: to be ecstatic over a movie being shot there. To them,
Speaker 1: it wasn't magic. It was a nuisance. Sometimes they just
Speaker 1: wanted to get to work without a t. J Eckelberg
Speaker 1: billboard of Bruce Willis hovering over the highway that they
Speaker 1: couldn't use. Sometimes they just wanted to buy a used
Speaker 1: midsize sedan in peace. There was even criticism that Breakfast
Speaker 1: of Champions was obscene, even though it contains only passing
Speaker 1: references to sex. Newspaper op ed writers fretted that it
Speaker 1: could open the door to lurid movies being shot in
Speaker 1: Idaho on a regular basis. One day it's Vonnegut, the
Speaker 1: next day it's Caligula. It was a slippery slope. Other
Speaker 1: locals took it in stride. At the second time. Around
Speaker 1: Antique Mall in Twin Falls, owners Claudia and Leo Reyes
Speaker 1: put out a bunch of not very antique Bruce Willis memorabilia,
Speaker 1: hoping Willis Mania would erupt. Of course, that wasn't quite
Speaker 1: San Valley's style. Movie stars were no big deal, and
Speaker 1: Breakfast of Champions didn't quite instill the kind of fervor
Speaker 1: of a movie where pierced brasn in fights volcanoes. Twain
Speaker 1: Hoover Struggle was more installated, more of a man Verse
Speaker 1: is himself kind of story. But Willis was completely in
Speaker 1: his element. He didn't have to explain to studio executives
Speaker 1: what he and Rudolf were going for, which was a
Speaker 1: very strange, almost psychedelic examination of a car dealer unraveling.
Speaker 1: The shoot, which lasted a total of six weeks, also
Speaker 1: included a cameo by Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegutt had said he
Speaker 1: had written the novel as a fiftieth birthday present to himself.
Speaker 1: Now he played a director of a television commercial. Vonnegutt
Speaker 1: was never all that bullish on Hollywood adapting his work.
Speaker 1: He once said that film is quote too clanking ly real,
Speaker 1: too permanent, too industrial, too inexpensive to be much fun.
Speaker 1: But here where Willis was spending some of his own money,
Speaker 1: Vonnegut didn't seem to mind visiting and being in front
Speaker 1: of the camera. By late Breakfast of Champions was finished, Alan,
Speaker 1: Rudolph and the Willis brothers sat down to evaluate what
Speaker 1: they had When the film looks to their satisfaction, they
Speaker 1: planned on taking it out and selling it to the
Speaker 1: highest bidder. And even if the movie wasn't their liking,
Speaker 1: studios might still snag it up just to endear themselves
Speaker 1: to Willis to be on his mind when he decided
Speaker 1: to do another action opus. Hollywood wondered what this new
Speaker 1: paradigm might look like. A list actors taking control of
Speaker 1: their passion projects. Everyone was about to find out. In May,
Speaker 1: Bruce Willis strolled down the aisle of a movie theater
Speaker 1: in Seattle, Washington, and introduced his brand new film, Breakfast
Speaker 1: of Champions. It was a screening for the city's Film festival.
Speaker 1: Instead of telling audiences how it cited he was, how
Speaker 1: much he looked forward to them seeing it, he said
Speaker 1: something pretty peculiar. He said that he would make no
Speaker 1: apologies for what they were about to see. That's not
Speaker 1: quite something you say when you're promoting a movie intended
Speaker 1: for mass consumption. But once the film began, the crowd
Speaker 1: understood what willis meant. Breakfast of Champions was a fever
Speaker 1: dream of a movie, going from one puzzling sequence to another.
Speaker 1: It's absurdest sense of humor felt off target. It wasn't
Speaker 1: really funny for a comedy, and it wasn't really serious
Speaker 1: for a drama. The crowd stumbled away in a bit
Speaker 1: of a daze. Even Kurt Vonnegut called it painful to watch,
Speaker 1: and he got money for it. I don't know much
Speaker 1: about its distribution plan, but it seems like it took
Speaker 1: a long time to edit, and then it was screen
Speaker 1: one or two places, and maybe that didn't go well.
Speaker 1: That scene repeated itself as more and more people got
Speaker 1: a glimpse of Breakfast of Champions. Here's David Blampete and
Speaker 1: when I said, when I saw it, I went, mmmm, interesting,
Speaker 1: I mean not I wanted to see what I looked
Speaker 1: like on the screen. I suppose it just didn't. It
Speaker 1: wasn't cohesive to me, didn't. It didn't ring the same
Speaker 1: way reading the you know, the kind of fifties version
Speaker 1: of it. I think that was a mistake to try
Speaker 1: to put it more contemporary because the kind of satirical,
Speaker 1: farcical nature of the piece. I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: think it worked. I mean it seemed to me. The
Speaker 1: most acclaim the movie got was Nick Noldy and drag
Speaker 1: Willis had gotten an opportunity to make the movie he
Speaker 1: wanted to make, one he made no apologies for, but
Speaker 1: it turned out there was a reason Alan Rudolph had
Speaker 1: experienced such trouble getting it off the ground, and Shelly,
Speaker 1: it's a strange story, maybe too strange for mainstream Hollywood
Speaker 1: at the time. The film sat on the shelf until
Speaker 1: Buena Vista, which was owned by Disney, agreed to distribute it,
Speaker 1: but it planned April release came and went. It wasn't
Speaker 1: until September that the film got a limited release, so
Speaker 1: limited that it made just over one hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: eight thousand dollars in ticket sales. It might be Bruce
Speaker 1: Willis's least seen film. Okay, where can I watch Breakfast Champions?
Speaker 1: Oh it's on Amazon Prime? No unavailable? Yeah it's it's
Speaker 1: listed there, but that's its currently available. Google you lie back.
Speaker 1: When the movie wrapped, Idahoans were kind of indifferent to
Speaker 1: it all. When the company sold off the movies props,
Speaker 1: people treated it less like a memorabilia sale and more
Speaker 1: like a garage sale. This wasn't the Planet Hollywood gift shop.
Speaker 1: It was a big lots people bought things not because
Speaker 1: they were used in a movie, but because it was
Speaker 1: stuff that they wanted at a reasonable price, stuff like
Speaker 1: a leather vest or a briefcase or kitchen items. The
Speaker 1: unnamed man in charge of the sale was even trying
Speaker 1: to sell a toilet that he said Bruce Willis had
Speaker 1: sat on. It wasn't entirely clear whether he was joking.
Speaker 1: Willis did his part to promote it locally too, The
Speaker 1: autographed the backdeck of Pontiac trans am he drove in
Speaker 1: the movie, which was offered for sale by Gary's Westland Motors.
Speaker 1: He also premiered the movie locally in Haley at his
Speaker 1: own Liberty Theater. He did a screening at the Liberty. Probably,
Speaker 1: I m it was an interesting time for me. I
Speaker 1: don't I was probably busy doing something else, either reading
Speaker 1: or whatever that I never I don't remember going to
Speaker 1: premiere I I saw the movie, though, But the box
Speaker 1: office blip of Breakfast of Champions doesn't quite tell the
Speaker 1: whole story. Thanks to the radical financing deal it more
Speaker 1: or less broke. Even today, a lot of movies are
Speaker 1: financed by selling international rights before a single frame is shot. Now,
Speaker 1: Bruce Willis didn't invent the strategy, but he might have
Speaker 1: been slightly ahead of his time, and as poorly as
Speaker 1: the film did, was on balance one of the best
Speaker 1: years of Bruce Willis's career. Just a month before Breakfast
Speaker 1: of Champions was released, Willis starred in The Sixth Sense
Speaker 1: as a child psychologist trying to counsel a kid who
Speaker 1: insists that he sees dead people. It made hundreds of
Speaker 1: millions of dollars. If it weren't for episode one of
Speaker 1: Star Wars, The sixth Cents would have been the biggest
Speaker 1: movie of that year, but that wasn't Willis's personal project
Speaker 1: is passion project that one filmed in his home state
Speaker 1: had simply come and gone. Even though Willis didn't lose
Speaker 1: money on Breakfast of Champions, it was a blow to
Speaker 1: his ego. He had stuck his neck out and tried
Speaker 1: something different and didn't get a lot of praise as
Speaker 1: a Maverick filmmaker. Around the same time filming on the
Speaker 1: movie was completed, the people of Haley were growing concerned
Speaker 1: that Bruce Willis may one day grow tired of being
Speaker 1: the region's benefactor, that maybe all the money and time
Speaker 1: and effort he had sunk into it wasn't delivering the
Speaker 1: reward he expected. It had been years since he had
Speaker 1: led a Fourth of July parade on horseback. This was concerning.
Speaker 1: What few Haley residents knew was that their town wasn't
Speaker 1: the only one Bruce Willis was trying to reinvigorate In
Speaker 1: penns Grove. It had been in the decline now for
Speaker 1: probably thirty five years. And to see stores and businesses
Speaker 1: and the community go downhill and depressed and have to
Speaker 1: get transitional aid from the state and no jobs and
Speaker 1: the people struggling, it was it was deflating. It was depressing.
Speaker 1: All this time there had been a kind of mistress,
Speaker 1: a fun house mirror version of Haley that Willis was
Speaker 1: looking to spend even more money on to renovate. And
Speaker 1: he had ideas to bring like a like a restaurant,
Speaker 1: like a steak house where the bank would be I
Speaker 1: guess it was something similar like you did out in Haley, Idaho.
Speaker 1: To find out what would happen to Haley, all people
Speaker 1: had to do was look at the last town. Bruce
Speaker 1: Willis tried to save his hometown of penns Grove, New Jersey,
Speaker 1: and I thought his ideas were brilliant and would would
Speaker 1: make a big impact in a town. Haleywood is hosted
Speaker 1: by Dana Schwartz. This show is written by Jake Rosson,
Speaker 1: editing by Derrick Clements, Mary Do and me Josh Fisher.
Speaker 1: Sound design and mixing by Jeremy Thal, Derrek Clemens, and
Speaker 1: me Josh Fisher. Original music by Natasha Jacobs. Research and
Speaker 1: fact checking by Jake Rosson, Austin Thompson and Marissa Brown.
Speaker 1: Show logo by Lucy Quentinia. Our senior producer is Ryan
Speaker 1: Murdoch and our executive producer is Jason English. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to the people of Hailey, Idaho and all those who've
Speaker 1: shared their stories. Haileywood is a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio Until Next Time.