Speaker 1: This is an I heart original. It's and Tom Blanchard
Speaker 1: is sitting down with his wife to eat at a
Speaker 1: new restaurant in the sleepy town of Hailey, Idaho. Hailey
Speaker 1: is a part of the Wood River Valley where Tom
Speaker 1: is a county commissioner, and he's eager to check out
Speaker 1: a big attraction in one of the area's smallest towns.
Speaker 1: It's packed, and everywhere Tom looks he sees something extravagant,
Speaker 1: amazing expensive hardwood furniture tables that have African daisies and
Speaker 1: tiger lilies erupting from vases, hand painted ostrojegs that line shelves.
Speaker 1: There are even palm trees. In Idaho. Grand openings of anything,
Speaker 1: especially a two story restaurant slash bar, are few and
Speaker 1: far between. And Haley, it's a former mining community with
Speaker 1: the kind of straightforward, no frills attitude that comes along
Speaker 1: with it. Some people in Haley aren't even sure a
Speaker 1: restaurant this nice belongs here. It's not that they don't
Speaker 1: like it, it's just that it's fancy. Locals don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of use for fancy. Tom's like that fancy
Speaker 1: is okay, but he can do without it. And he's
Speaker 1: not phased by much, but even he's surprised by what
Speaker 1: happens when he looks up from his menu to see
Speaker 1: who's looking back at him. The server is Bruce Willis.
Speaker 1: He was our server. Um My wife and I ate
Speaker 1: at the mint one night and he was our server
Speaker 1: because he he would go down there and he would
Speaker 1: end up waiting on tables and you know, talking to
Speaker 1: people or you know, serving at the bar. Bruce Willis
Speaker 1: smiles as he jots down their order. Well, if you've
Speaker 1: seen his movies, you know he doesn't smile so much
Speaker 1: as he smirks. That's part of the Bruce Willis image.
Speaker 1: Never a complete smile, more of a half grin without
Speaker 1: showing many teeth, something that says, you know, I'm charming.
Speaker 1: I know I'm charming, and we're both pretty amused by it.
Speaker 1: The smirk that's made hundreds of millions of dollars at
Speaker 1: the box office in films like Die Hard, Twelve Monkeys,
Speaker 1: and Pulp Fiction. He even made that talking baby movie
Speaker 1: Look Who's Talking, a success that spawned two sequels, though
Speaker 1: Willis sat out the third movie when the dog started talking.
Speaker 1: Willis was the voice of Mikey the Baby, a constantly
Speaker 1: smirking baby. The point being Bruce Willis in was one
Speaker 1: of the biggest movie stars on the planet, an action
Speaker 1: hero whose everyman qualities helped balance out these superhuman characters
Speaker 1: played by Bazooka tootors like Schwarzenegger and Stallone. An actor
Speaker 1: who was highly respected for dramatic turns in movies like
Speaker 1: as a tortured Vietnam veteran in In Country and opposite
Speaker 1: Paul Newman in Nobody's Fool. A mega watt star, making
Speaker 1: tens of millions of dollars almost every time he appeared
Speaker 1: on screen. And yet here he is in Haley, serving
Speaker 1: Tom Blanchard and several other tables their appetizers. And it's
Speaker 1: not because Bruce Willis had fallen on hard times. It's
Speaker 1: because Bruce Willis owns the restaurant known as The Mint.
Speaker 1: In fact, he now owns several businesses along Haley's main street,
Speaker 1: in addition to a private residence just on the edge
Speaker 1: of town. That's why residents started calling their home something
Speaker 1: besides Haley. They started referring to it as Haleywood. But
Speaker 1: some people couldn't shake the feeling Willis didn't want a
Speaker 1: town so much as a movie set, one where Willis
Speaker 1: was the director. And if Haley was a movie set
Speaker 1: and Willis was the director and the star, didn't that
Speaker 1: make the locals well? Extras for I Heart Radio This
Speaker 1: is Haleywood, and I heart original podcast, I'm Your Host
Speaker 1: Danis Schwartz, and this is Episode three Planet Haley Wood.
Speaker 1: In the nineties, Bruce Willis wasn't just a movie star.
Speaker 1: He was also a businessman involved in one of the
Speaker 1: trendiest business moves an actor could pull off, becoming the
Speaker 1: face of a slightly corny theme restaurant. It's easy to
Speaker 1: see the appeal. Kenny Rogers Roasters, a chicken spot, Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan's steakhouse eminem recently opened to storefronts in Detroit named
Speaker 1: Mom Spaghetti. And there's Mark Wahlberg's Wallburgers, which he operates
Speaker 1: with his brothers. These are kind of self aware in
Speaker 1: their kitchen appeal, sometimes earnest, sometimes bombastic. But during the
Speaker 1: nineties heyday, the theme restaurant was serious business, and no
Speaker 1: theme restaurant was bigger than Planet Hollywood in tourist friendly
Speaker 1: cities like New York, Los Angeles at Disney World, even
Speaker 1: all the way to Moscow. These monuments to Hollywood glamour
Speaker 1: and stardom popped up and enticed patrons with an aesthetic
Speaker 1: that worshiped the movies. Picture a t g I Fridays
Speaker 1: with movie memorabilia, with movie flair, a place to eat
Speaker 1: fried chicken coated and capt'n crunch cereal while seated underneath
Speaker 1: Rocky balboas boxing trunks or John mcclean's dirty undershirt. Movies
Speaker 1: and movie stars hadn't been shrunk down to streaming services yet.
Speaker 1: Movies were still an event, and eating a burger while
Speaker 1: staring at a glass case with Jason Vorhees hockey mask
Speaker 1: staring down at customers was a draw. But the real
Speaker 1: secret sauce was the endorsement from major movie stars who
Speaker 1: came out for Planet Hollywood grand openings like they were
Speaker 1: movie premiers. Why simple, Plan It Hollywood was a turnkey
Speaker 1: operation for celebrities who wanted to flex their business acumen
Speaker 1: in exchange for publicity. Stars would get shares in the company,
Speaker 1: and the more they promoted, the more money they'd make.
Speaker 1: That was the idea anyway. Planet Hollywood was the brainchild
Speaker 1: of Brian Kessner and Keith Barrish to film producers who
Speaker 1: decided to take the template of hard Rock Cafe and
Speaker 1: apply it to movies. They teamed with Robert Earle, who
Speaker 1: was then CEO of Hard Rock International and who knew
Speaker 1: the novelty eatery business well. They thought about calling it
Speaker 1: Cafe Hollywood before settling on Planet Hollywood, and because they
Speaker 1: wanted it to be an international brand, they needed actors
Speaker 1: who had international appeal. The first two names on a list,
Speaker 1: Arnold Schwartzenegger and Bruce Willis Demi Moore joined in, making
Speaker 1: Willis and More the power couple of the theme restaurant industry.
Speaker 1: Soon Sylvester Stallone joined them. For Stallone, it was an
Speaker 1: interesting foreshadowing of movies imitating life. The sixth installment of
Speaker 1: the Rocky franchise in two thousand and six featured Stallone's
Speaker 1: character opening a restaurant called Adrian's. In the film, Rocky
Speaker 1: used his celebrity to draw business, just as Stallone and
Speaker 1: the others had done I R L. Back in the nineties.
Speaker 1: The first Planet Hollywood opened in Manhattan in serving up,
Speaker 1: among other things, mixed drinks named die Harder's. It had
Speaker 1: palm trees and plenty of star power, all of the
Speaker 1: other franchise openings did too. George Looney, Wesley Snipes, Luke Perry,
Speaker 1: Eddie Murphy, a who's who of nineties faces were usually there.
Speaker 1: Willis and the others regularly attended, drawing thousands of adoring
Speaker 1: fans and tons of media. In some of the high
Speaker 1: profile locations, like in Los Angeles, there seemed to be
Speaker 1: a vague notion that any regular Joe might walk into
Speaker 1: the restaurant and see Arnold or Bruce or Demi sipping
Speaker 1: a drink. This rarely happened, but it was part of
Speaker 1: the appeal. Willis had to say in the franchises liquor selection,
Speaker 1: using his expertise from his bartending days in New York,
Speaker 1: while Arnold contributed his mother's strutal recipe Burger's nachos, blaring
Speaker 1: music quote before they were stars, high school photos on
Speaker 1: the place mats. It was a perfect restaurant for the
Speaker 1: celebrity obsessed tabloid culture of the nineties. If a patron
Speaker 1: ponied up for a Planet Hollywood Express card, they could
Speaker 1: even get some of that special treatment usually afforded to
Speaker 1: the Hollywood elite, jumping the lines to be seated more
Speaker 1: quickly and those lines could get pretty long. The chain
Speaker 1: was serving up seven hundred and fifty thousand people every
Speaker 1: year at restaurants in thirty one countries. Planet Hollywood became
Speaker 1: a brand advertised in movie theaters. Going to a Planet
Speaker 1: Hollywood became a right of vacationers everywhere, a stop you
Speaker 1: needed to make to bring home a souvenir for family members,
Speaker 1: a denim shirt, a polo shirt, a fossil watch. It
Speaker 1: even had a tie in board game. The Bomber Jackets
Speaker 1: with the Planet Hollywood logo sported by Willis and the others,
Speaker 1: were a kind of uniform, like they were part of
Speaker 1: a winning varsity team in the sport of making money.
Speaker 1: Customers could buy them too, for three d and twenty
Speaker 1: five dollars. But at openings, Willis could contribute something the
Speaker 1: others couldn't, a stage presence. Civilians weren't allowed inside the
Speaker 1: star studded v I P gatherings, of course, so Willis
Speaker 1: would bring the party outside where fans were standing expectantly. Opening.
Speaker 1: After opening, Willis and his band the Accelerators would jam,
Speaker 1: giving audiences a full course of his charisma. Arnold and
Speaker 1: Sly could merely wave and smile Willis's most memorable opening
Speaker 1: came at the debut of A Planet Hollywood in San Diego.
Speaker 1: On stage with his band, he was joined by Anna
Speaker 1: Nicole Smith, the pin up of the moment thanks to
Speaker 1: our appearances in Playboy and as a model for guests jeans.
Speaker 1: Smith was looking to shock the crowd, and she did
Speaker 1: by taking out one of her breasts and waving it
Speaker 1: around without any prompting or provocation from Willis. She then
Speaker 1: unbuttoned his shirt and either licked his chest or pretended
Speaker 1: to lick his chest, depending on which version you'd like
Speaker 1: to believe. But here's the problem with being trendy. Trends,
Speaker 1: by their nature, don't last very long. While the openings
Speaker 1: were splashy and exciting, pretty soon people realized that Arnold
Speaker 1: wasn't going to just show up and offered to split
Speaker 1: a milkshake. The food was no different than your average Applebee's,
Speaker 1: and the struggling aspiring actors working as waiters weren't worth
Speaker 1: repeated trips. Planet Hollywood went public in and tried to
Speaker 1: keep growing, but the public's appetite for cereal encrusted chicken
Speaker 1: fingers and terminator jackets mounted on walls had reached its peak,
Speaker 1: celebrities began moving away from the premiers. Locations closed, two
Speaker 1: bankruptcies followed. There are still some Planet Hollywood's in business today,
Speaker 1: but few movie stars celebrating their grand openings. It was
Speaker 1: fun while it lasted, and the experience was invaluable for
Speaker 1: Willis and more. It showed them how they could monetize
Speaker 1: their celebrity in the service industry. But opening a Planet
Speaker 1: Hollywood franchise in Haley was out of the question. It
Speaker 1: was too big, too well to Hollywood Haley. It was
Speaker 1: supposed to be the escape from all that. As Planet
Speaker 1: Hollywood was starting to spin out of orbit, Willis decided
Speaker 1: to do his own version of a theme restaurant in Haley.
Speaker 1: But it wouldn't be restricted to just one building. It
Speaker 1: would be places where, yeah, maybe you would see Bruce
Speaker 1: Willis hanging out. Bruce Willis's arrival in Haley solved a
Speaker 1: very big problem facing the catch him Sun Valley Chamber
Speaker 1: of Commerce. Here's Wendy Jake what I was a director
Speaker 1: of the Sun Valley Catching Chamber of Commerce. At that time.
Speaker 1: The town was pretty sleepy, storefronts boarded up just in
Speaker 1: the main area. Older buildings the hospital was converted to
Speaker 1: a city hall and a library. The County building is
Speaker 1: a block over. It's an old, wonderful brick building from
Speaker 1: the late eighteen hundreds. When the silver mining boom was
Speaker 1: taking place, the host mistress and the mayor and other
Speaker 1: people and Haley were talking about doing a video to
Speaker 1: promote downtown Haley because things had kind of gone awry,
Speaker 1: wasn't it wasn't really very much of a viable town
Speaker 1: that we're empty storefronts. And then all of a sudden
Speaker 1: we got Bruce Willis of redevelopment, and we didn't really
Speaker 1: need a video after that. Suddenly there was another boom,
Speaker 1: not a silver mining boom, a Bruce Willis boom. There
Speaker 1: were jackhammers and forklifts and rubble, the good kind of
Speaker 1: rubble that told you something was changing, Something was being
Speaker 1: torn down so something better could go up in its place.
Speaker 1: A transformation was underway. It was a Tuesday hours on
Speaker 1: dead line. I was in a big hurry getting the
Speaker 1: paper finished. Wayne and Dair, editor of the Wood River Journal,
Speaker 1: and somebody came into my office, you know, to get
Speaker 1: your camera and go out into the alley, and Bruce
Speaker 1: Willis has carried two by fours over his shoulder. That
Speaker 1: to helped the construction workers and h he said, yeah,
Speaker 1: you could probably sell a picture like that to the
Speaker 1: National Enquirer for our fifty dollars. I mean, I would
Speaker 1: like to have fifty dollars as much as anybody. But
Speaker 1: becoming a paparazzi was not, uh, in my wheelhouse at all.
Speaker 1: But that's sounded exactly like something he would do, just literally,
Speaker 1: you know, pitching in and helping to get the job
Speaker 1: done and being pretty comfortable doing it. Willis was busy
Speaker 1: renovating the Mint as a bar in a former mining town.
Speaker 1: It was dilapidated, dark. He tore down an little bar
Speaker 1: and built what he called them in and he spent
Speaker 1: a couple of million bucks at least on renovating it.
Speaker 1: Did a beautiful job, made it into a bar and
Speaker 1: at a stage that's former Hailey resident and attorney leash Lender.
Speaker 1: Of course it was. I mean, it's it's stuck out
Speaker 1: like a sore thumb, because it's the kind of thing
Speaker 1: you would see in a major city. Everything else is uh,
Speaker 1: you know, almost tie up your horse outside. So it
Speaker 1: was it was different, that's for sure, but it was
Speaker 1: beautifully done, the dark corners were gone, The surly drinkers
Speaker 1: were effectively evicted, forced to find another watering hole to Bruton.
Speaker 1: Lunch wasn't of the liquid variety, but freshly caught Idaho
Speaker 1: trout were burghers. It was affordable to a lunch bill
Speaker 1: for two might come to about twenty dollars. Suddenly the
Speaker 1: Mint was a shiny new establishment where the slenders and
Speaker 1: other locals were sitting down to grab a meal. And
Speaker 1: while there wouldn't be memorabilia that was very much a
Speaker 1: Planet Hollywood approach, patrons would still know who was bankrolling
Speaker 1: the venture. Above the dining area was a giant photo
Speaker 1: of Bruce Willis as a baby, not the look Who's
Speaker 1: talking baby, his actual baby photo. I think that the
Speaker 1: major impression of everybody was that's going to be a
Speaker 1: real addition to our little main street, and we welcome
Speaker 1: the money. You see when you leave Haley, you go
Speaker 1: ten miles north, you get in to catch him in
Speaker 1: sun Valley, and it's a working man's town. When you
Speaker 1: come south and leave catch him. Hayley was not the
Speaker 1: place where the people that had money of it was
Speaker 1: purely a working class, working class people. In fact, I
Speaker 1: think Bruce was probably one of the first ones of
Speaker 1: that type of society that actually built Dollar. There was more,
Speaker 1: much more to the Mint, not just a place to eat,
Speaker 1: but a place for Bruce Willis to be Bruce Willis
Speaker 1: in a way that felt comfortable to him, and we'll
Speaker 1: get to that. But he wasn't done with Main Street.
Speaker 1: Next came the E. G. Willis Building, named after Willis's grandfather.
Speaker 1: It was a combination retail and office space with a
Speaker 1: variety of specialty shops like jewelers and furniture stores. We
Speaker 1: mentioned this before in relation to Willis's dust up with
Speaker 1: the Wood River Journal, but there was more to it.
Speaker 1: On the street level of the E. G. Willis Building
Speaker 1: was Shorties, a Bruce Willis project that paid homage to
Speaker 1: the diners of the nineteen fifties. Willis had named the
Speaker 1: joint after his dog, red leather booths, shiny chrome tabletop jukeboxes.
Speaker 1: Haley already had a breakfast hang out that the locals liked,
Speaker 1: but well, it wasn't exactly what Bruce Willis wanted. It
Speaker 1: wasn't open late enough, so he built something he liked better,
Speaker 1: a place that served eggs but also served hummus anytime,
Speaker 1: day or night. That was kind of what Bruce Willis did.
Speaker 1: If he saw something in Haley that he felt could
Speaker 1: be approved upon, he'd do it. If he thought it
Speaker 1: was missing something, he'd built it. There was a pulse,
Speaker 1: a Bruce nous to Haley that was becoming palpable. Here's
Speaker 1: Wendy Jake Wet. I think people in Sun Valley and
Speaker 1: Catchen looked at this change in Haley as kind of
Speaker 1: an opportunity, kind of like a place where it would
Speaker 1: be a little bit more authentic. It wouldn't be they
Speaker 1: might perceive as as a glitsey resort seeing versus something
Speaker 1: that was more authentic. But look at this. It also
Speaker 1: had this Bruce Willis amenity to it. The Bruce Willis amenity.
Speaker 1: The mint and shorties had his aesthetic, his love of
Speaker 1: a bygone era resurrected in the form of pies, under
Speaker 1: glass and tabletop jukeboxes. He was having fun sculpting the town.
Speaker 1: The same ambition he had demonstrated pursuing an acting career
Speaker 1: was making things happen in Haley. Sometimes little things cropped up,
Speaker 1: little signs that Bruce might have been getting frustrated with
Speaker 1: small town bureaucracy, things like permits and zoning, things that
Speaker 1: he never had to deal with that planet Hollywood were
Speaker 1: proving to be a nuisance. After all, Haley was flourishing,
Speaker 1: and he was investing in it, and someone in that
Speaker 1: position might expect a little cooperation. Once Hailey took issue
Speaker 1: with the fact that Willis didn't have the required number
Speaker 1: of parking spaces for the E. G. Willis Building, he
Speaker 1: was ten spaces short. He could have paid a fee
Speaker 1: of twenty five thousand dollars to cover the infraction and
Speaker 1: kept doing business without the spaces. Instead, Demi Moore bought
Speaker 1: a shuttered drug store across the street. It was listed
Speaker 1: for six hundred and seventy five dollars. Willis got his parking.
Speaker 1: The building itself remained vacant. To some, the town began
Speaker 1: taking on the feel of a Hollywood back lot. You
Speaker 1: know about back lots. They are built by studios for
Speaker 1: shooting movies and have replica storefronts that sometimes lead nowhere.
Speaker 1: You just walk through a door and come out the
Speaker 1: other side of the unfinished face of the building. After
Speaker 1: the Mint Shorties and the G. Willis Building, there was
Speaker 1: more Willis zoned in on the one place any movie
Speaker 1: star rearranging a small hometown would need. A worn down
Speaker 1: building known as the Liberty Theater. It was a place
Speaker 1: that once proudly presented movies, not a multiplex, but a
Speaker 1: single screen theater open since it was old school, The
Speaker 1: original owner was a barber during the day and prospected
Speaker 1: for gold on the weekends. Like the Mint, the theater
Speaker 1: needed a lot of care, which the current owners couldn't provide.
Speaker 1: Willis bought it and restored it to its former Art
Speaker 1: Deco glory without stripping it of its small town charms.
Speaker 1: He put a lot of money into an old theater.
Speaker 1: They're got it out, putting in a new seeding the
Speaker 1: new stage. It was first class. Inside. The ornate lobby
Speaker 1: was full of gold accents. Bolivian rosewood panels lined the walls.
Speaker 1: A huge chandelier loomed overhead. The theater itself had beautiful
Speaker 1: gold curtains and brand new chairs that reclined. Even better,
Speaker 1: the balcony had love seats that reclined. Tickets were still
Speaker 1: four dollars four dollars, and beer was still served in
Speaker 1: the balcony. A blazing red marquee lit up Haley's night sky.
Speaker 1: Bulbs encircling the titles of the films now playing. For
Speaker 1: Willis and for Haley, it was the ideal amalgamation of
Speaker 1: the old and the new, a historical landmark in town,
Speaker 1: updated with care that preserved Haley's culture. Anyone stepping inside
Speaker 1: the Liberty had one word for it, beautiful. I think
Speaker 1: that was a huge hit and one of Bruce Willis's dreams.
Speaker 1: One he spoke aloud in a rare moment of candor
Speaker 1: with the press, was that he could one day host
Speaker 1: the premiere of one of his fail elms in a
Speaker 1: movie theater he owned. Even though Willis had left a
Speaker 1: lot of Planet Hollywood behind, it turned out he wanted
Speaker 1: to keep one more element, the sonic boom of a
Speaker 1: major celebrity event. In the same year Bruce Willis started
Speaker 1: reshaping Haley, he decided he could control just how much
Speaker 1: Hollywood he wanted in the town. Willis was set to
Speaker 1: star in Twelve Monkeys, a science fiction film directed by
Speaker 1: Terry Gilliam of Monty Python fame and co starring a
Speaker 1: rapidly ascending actor named Brad Pitt. It was a surreal
Speaker 1: story about a man named James Cole played by Willis.
Speaker 1: Who travels back in time to stop a deadly virus
Speaker 1: from taking the world by storm. When he arrives in
Speaker 1: our present or close to it, he sent to a
Speaker 1: mental institution. No one believes Cole is from the future
Speaker 1: or that he belongs there. He's an odd man out.
Speaker 1: Instead of traveling back to Los Angeles for a premiere,
Speaker 1: Willis saw no reason why he couldn't spend a lot
Speaker 1: of his money and a lot of the studios money,
Speaker 1: bringing the premiere to Haley. He flew his co stars
Speaker 1: into Haley on a private jet and then shuttled them
Speaker 1: to Main Street and limousines. Jean Claude van Dam was there,
Speaker 1: and so was hotel mogul Steve Wynn. It had all
Speaker 1: the trappings of the glitzy debuts you saw in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: At the premiere, Willis was ecstatic. He welcomed both locals
Speaker 1: and big stars at the door, ushering them in, screaming
Speaker 1: that all the candy was free, all the baby ruths
Speaker 1: you could eat at a Bruce Willis premiere. You didn't
Speaker 1: have to pay for concessions. But if the goal of
Speaker 1: a movie premiere is to draw attention to your film,
Speaker 1: why do it in Idaho, here's leash Slender. You're starting
Speaker 1: to get way west. By the time you get to
Speaker 1: uh You're not on the edges of Denver or another
Speaker 1: metropolitan area. So there wasn't a big area to draw from.
Speaker 1: If you put on a premiere or an act of
Speaker 1: a certain type, there's only so many people that are
Speaker 1: going to come because it's just that remote. Did a
Speaker 1: lot of people come from out of town? Do is it? No?
Speaker 1: Not at all. In fact, most people didn't even know
Speaker 1: whatever happened. And maybe that's just how Willis liked it.
Speaker 1: It was more like a private party. It was sort
Speaker 1: of Bruce saying, Okay, I'm here, this is me, this
Speaker 1: is where I'm from, this is my life, and I've
Speaker 1: got this movie. I want you to see about it
Speaker 1: because I do a good job in this and from
Speaker 1: what I have heard, I haven't seen one of his movies,
Speaker 1: but from what I hear, i'm the younger people. They
Speaker 1: think he's terrific. Of course, not every movie Bruce Willis
Speaker 1: premiered and Haley was a crowd pleaser. The next year,
Speaker 1: the gangster drama Last Man Standing got a similar Haley treatment,
Speaker 1: but it didn't strike a chord with critics or viewers.
Speaker 1: It was a lean, spare movie that shaved off most
Speaker 1: of Willis's wise guy charms, which was probably a mistake.
Speaker 1: The same year, Willis and Moore opened The Liberty for
Speaker 1: the premiere of Strip Tease, an erotic drama in which
Speaker 1: More started as a woman who begins stripping to earn
Speaker 1: money enough to regain custody of her young daughter. Then
Speaker 1: she gets embroiled in a political scandal, as strippers do.
Speaker 1: Hollywood saw the movie as having the potential to be
Speaker 1: another basic, instinct allured sexy thriller that pushes boundaries without
Speaker 1: crossing them. Entertainment Weekly said it would quote reveal more
Speaker 1: skin than a year's worth of Victoria's secret catalogs. The
Speaker 1: poster was singled out by the Motion Picture Association of
Speaker 1: America as being too revealing, with More naked in the
Speaker 1: shadow and cross lagged into suggestive oppose, but the role
Speaker 1: was important to More. Bruce and Demi's seven year old daughter, Rumor,
Speaker 1: even appeared in the film as more as on screen daughter,
Speaker 1: and the real headline, more than any erotic imagery, was
Speaker 1: that Demi earned a record twelve point five million dollar
Speaker 1: salary for an actress. No one, not Julia Roberts, not
Speaker 1: harrold Strape, not Sandra Bullock, had ever made as much.
Speaker 1: But while Willis and male actors were congratulated for big salaries,
Speaker 1: Moore was met with resentment. Some in the press dubbed
Speaker 1: her gimme Moore. It was a peculiar double standard. But
Speaker 1: aside from the premiere in Haley, Demi wasn't seen as
Speaker 1: often as Willis. She kept a much lower profile. She
Speaker 1: would rarely, rarely show up anywhere where she could be seen.
Speaker 1: Haley provided the same sort of escape from the cloying press,
Speaker 1: the double standards, the judgmental public, for more as it
Speaker 1: did for Willis. Striptease would be Moore's only film that
Speaker 1: premiered in Haley. In his premieres, Willis pulled off what
Speaker 1: most act there's only dream of, tight trating the precise
Speaker 1: level of celebrity, just enough to enjoy, not so much
Speaker 1: as to be overbearing. While his movies didn't premiere in
Speaker 1: his literal backyard, it was close, and when his famous
Speaker 1: friends left and the carpet was rolled up, Haley could
Speaker 1: go back to being the nondescript town Willis had fallen
Speaker 1: in love with It was just a brief intermission, just
Speaker 1: a little measured dose of fame, a little hit, and
Speaker 1: it was all in his control. There were times when
Speaker 1: Bruce Willis wanted to be noticed, and there were times
Speaker 1: when he didn't. And when he didn't, it wasn't enough
Speaker 1: for him. It simply to retreat into the background or
Speaker 1: stick close to home. Any uninvited attention was met with, well,
Speaker 1: let's call it resistance. Locals would sometimes hear vague warnings
Speaker 1: floating through the year. Don't talk about Bruce Willis, don't
Speaker 1: photograph Bruce Willis. Just ignore the movie star with the
Speaker 1: giant baby photo in the restaurant. If he wanted to,
Speaker 1: he could have just become a member of the local community.
Speaker 1: And but that wasn't Bruce Willis. And I can understand,
Speaker 1: looking at the temperature range that he ran in in
Speaker 1: his career, his movies, etcetera. This is high wire stuff.
Speaker 1: I don't think he's ready to sit down and uh
Speaker 1: do flapjacks at the Alliance Club softball game every summer.
Speaker 1: If it worked, if it all worked, Haleywood could become
Speaker 1: Bruce Bell a place that had everything arranged in a
Speaker 1: way that made it a custom fit a bespoke town,
Speaker 1: tailored to order. The pieces were all in place. Now
Speaker 1: Haley was going to see what their new benefactor planned
Speaker 1: to do with their main street or his new main
Speaker 1: street next time on Haleywood, The Mint it wasn't just
Speaker 1: a place to eat under the gaze of Willis's baby photo.
Speaker 1: It also acts as nightclub, a stage for Bruce Willis's band,
Speaker 1: and one of the few places in Haley where you
Speaker 1: might just get your ass kicked. It was a group
Speaker 1: of them, and I remember going to my car and uh,
Speaker 1: and I had my concealed weapons permitting everything Victin and
Speaker 1: I just put my pistol in my pants and someone
Speaker 1: called the cops. Right. Haleywood is hosted by Dana Schwartz.
Speaker 1: This show is written by Jake Rawson, Editing, sound design
Speaker 1: and mixing by me Josh Fisher, Additional editing by Mary
Speaker 1: do Original music by Natasha Jacobs, mixing by Jeremy Thal,
Speaker 1: Research and fact checking by Jake Rawson, Austin Thompson and
Speaker 1: Marissa Brown. Show logo by Lucy Quintinia. Our senior producer
Speaker 1: is Ryan Murdoch and our executive producer is Jason English.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to the people of Hailey, Idaho and all
Speaker 1: those who've shared their stories. Haileywood is a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio Until Next Time.