‘Die Hard’ star Bruce Willis’ brain is ‘failing him’
Across decades, Willis became known not only for his action credentials but also for his work in sci-fi, drama and dark comedy, leaving an indelible mark on modern cinema.
BRUCE Willis in ‘Die Hard 4.’
Photograph courtesy of 20TH CENTURY FOX
Bruce Willis’ family has recently made the difficult decision of moving the Die Hard actor into a one-story house, with his frontotemporal dementia progressing.
Willis is now residing with a dedicated care team in a separate house. His wife, Emma Heming Willis, said that he remains mobile, yet the case is not the same for his brain.
“Bruce is still very mobile. Bruce is in really great health overall. It’s just his brain that is failing him,” she said.
She added that their children, Mabel Ray, 13, and Evelyn Penn, 11, are coping well “all things considered,” but remarked that they “miss their dad so much.”
“I think they’re doing well,” Heming Willis said to Vogue Australia. “They grieve. They miss their dad so much.He’s missing important milestones; that’s tough for them.”
Willis is best known for his iconic role as NYPD officer John McClane in the Die Hard series, which launched in 1988 and became a cornerstone of the action genre.
Beyond McClane, Willis gained acclaim for a wide range of roles, including his Golden Globe–winning turn as David Addison Jr. in the TV series Moonlighting, which helped propel him to stardom. He starred in Pulp Fiction (1994) as the brooding boxer Butch Coolidge and in The Fifth Element (1997), a cult classic sci-fi film directed by Luc Besson. He also played pivotal roles in 12 Monkeys (1995), earning critical praise, and in M. Night Shyamalan’s supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense (1999), where his understated performance helped the film become a global phenomenon. Other notable films include Armageddon (1998), Unbreakable (2000), Red (2010), Looper (2012) and Sin City (2005).
Across decades, Willis became known not only for his action credentials but also for his work in sci-fi, drama and dark comedy, leaving an indelible mark on modern cinema.