Bruce Willis was born on a military base. His father was discharged in 1957, and he took the family (Bruce Willis is the eldest of four children) back to settle in Carneys Point, N.J. USA, so dad could take work at the Camden Shipyard. Bruce Willis attended high school in nearby Penns Grove, where he was elected student council president and was active in drama clubs. He ended up expelled for three months halfway through his senior year as a result of his involvement in what he later characterized as "the annual riot, the black-white anti-human-relations fest." As a child, Bruce Willis was plagued by a severe stutter, he eventually tamed his tongue through acting, after discovering that he could speak clearly and calmly whenever he was acting.
Instead of college, Willis found full-time work transporting work crews at the Du Pont factory in Deepwaters. An industrial accident that claimed the life of a fellow driver made him reconsider his 'career', and he quit his job soon after. Bruce Willis spent several months hanging out in bars and playing harmonica for a local R&B outfit called Loose Goose. He eventually got a job as a security guard at the construction site for a large nuclear plant. Bruce Willis' interest in theater eventually led him to Montclair State College, where he attended the drama program. While at Montclair, he was a hit as Brick in a school production of the Tennessee Williams classic "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof", and started to skip classes to go to New York for off-Broadway auditions. Willis left school in the middle of his junior year and rented a tiny apartment in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood.
Bruce Willis payed his bills by getting a job tending bar at the trendy Cafe Central (which at the time was a hip networking spot). When Bruce Willis was not working, he pursued acting jobs, frequently answering appointment-only casting calls without an appointment and then demanding he be allowed to audition anyway. Bruce Willis made his off-Broadway debut in a production of "Heaven And Earth", and got his big break in 1984, when he was picked to replace Will Patton in Sam Shepard's "Fool Gor Love". While doing "Fool For Love", Bruce Willis caught the eye of a "Miami Vice" casting director, who taped him for a guest appearance as a villainous, CIA-connected gunrunner. Bruce Willis gained more exposure in a series of commercials for Levis 501 jeans.
Bruce Willis resume consisted of a pair of uncredited cameos in "The Verdict" and "The First Deadly Sin". Then he flew to Los Angeles in 1985 to read for a part in Madonna's "Desperately Seeking Susan". After not receiving the part, Bruce Willis was about to return to New York when he got wind of a casting call for a new ABC series to be titled "Moonlighting". Bruce Willis was among the last of the 3,000 hopefuls to read for the part of David Addison, a wisecracking foil to Cybil Shepherd's Maddie Hayes. Producer Glenn Gordon Caron immediately warmed to the relatively unknown off-Broadway actor, and in direct opposition to the objections of his ABC bosses, who did not want to squander the part on a New York nobody, Caron gave Bruce Willis the part.
Bruce Willis met Demi Moore at a 1987 screening of "Stakeout" which at the time stared Demi Moore's then boyfriend Emilio Estevez. Bruce Willis and Demi Moore's had a Vegas wedding on .
