Actor and musician Bruce Willis is well known for his film appearances as wisecracking or hard-edged characters, often in spectacular action films. Collectively, he has appeared in films that have grossed in excess of $2.5 billion USD placing him in the top ten stars in terms of box office receipts. Walter Bruce Willis was born on March 19, 1955, in West Germany, to an American father and a German mother, who were living on a United States military base. He was raised in Penns Grove, New Jersey. Willis picked up an interest for the dramatic arts in high school, and was allegedly "discovered" whilst working in a café in New York City and then appeared in a couple of off-Broadway productions. While bartending one night, he was seen by a casting director who liked his personality and needed a bartender for a small movie role.

After countless auditions, Willis contributed minor film appearances, usually uncredited, before landing the role of private eye "David Addison" alongside sultry Cybill Shepherd in the hit romantic comedy television series Детективное агентство ╚Лунный свет╩(1985). The series firmly established Bruce Willis as a hot new talent, and his sarcastic and wisecracking P.I. was in effect a dry run for the role of hard-boiled NYC detective "John McClane" in the monster hit Крепкий орешек (1988). This superbly paced action film balanced laconic humor and wholesale destruction as Willis' character single handedly battles a gang of ruthless international thieves in a Los Angeles skyscraper. Willis reprized the role of tough guy cop "John McClane" in the eagerly anticipated sequelКрепкий орешек 2 (1990) set at snowbound Washington's Dulles International Airport as a group of renegade Special Forces soldiers seek to repatriate a corrupt South American general. Excellent box office returns demanded a further sequel Крепкий орешек 3(1995) this time also starring Samuel L. Jackson as a cynical Harlem shopowner unwittingly thrust into assisting McClane during a terrorist bombing campaign on a sweltering day in NYC.

Willis found time out from all the action mayhem to provide the voice of "Mikey" the baby in the very popular family comedies Look Who's Talking (1989), and its sequel Look Who's Talking Too (1990) also starring John Travolta and Kirstie Alley. Over the next decade, Willis starred in some very successful films, some very offbeat films and some unfortunate box office flops. The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) and Hudson Hawk (1991) were both large scale financial disasters that were savaged by the critics, and both are arguably best left off the CVs of all the actors involved, however Willis was still popular with movie audiences and selling plenty of theatre tickets with the hyperviolentПоследний бойскаут (1991), the darkly humored Смерть ей к лицу (1992) and the mediocre police thriller Striking Distance (1993). During the 1990s, Willis also appeared in several independent and low budget productions that won him new fans and praise from the critics for his intriguing performances working with some very diverse film directors. He appeared in the oddly appealing North (1994), as a cagey prizefighter in the Quentin Tarantino directed mega-hit Криминальное чтиво (1994), the Terry Gilliam directed apocalyptic thriller Двенадцать обезьян (1995), the Luc Besson directed sci-fi opusПятый элемент (1997) and the M. Night Shyamalan directed spine-tingling epic Шестое чувство (1999).

Willis next starred in the gangster comedy Девять ярдов (2000), worked again with "hot" director M. Night Shyamalan in the less gripping Неуязвимый (2000), and in two military dramas, Война Харта (2002) and Слёзы солнца (2003) that both failed to really fire with movie audiences or critics alike. However, Willis bounced back into the spotlight in the critically applauded Frank Miller graphic novel turned movie Город грехов (2005), the voice of "RJ" the scheming raccoon in the animated hit Лесная братва (2006) and "Die Hard" fans rejoiced to see "John McClane" return to the big screen in the high techКрепкий орешек 4.0 (2007) aka "Die Hard 4.0".

Willis was married to actress Demi Moore for approximately thirteen years and they share custody to their three children.