It was in spring 2022 that the world found out that long-time action movie fan favorite Bruce Willis was retiring from acting, due to being diagnosed with a health condition that was eventually revealed to be frontotemporal dementia, which affects cognition and other things. While the shocking news was definitely sad to hear, it has likely led many of the Die Hard star’s fans to take some trips down memory lane to revisit some of his best performances. One of those is certainly the part that first made him famous: Moonlighting’s David Addison. The show’s creator opened up about working with Willis, and what their relationship has been like since his diagnosis.
What Did Moonlighting’s Creator Say About Working With Bruce Willis And Their Relationship After His Diagnosis?
Bruce Willis is still one of our most recognizable movie stars, having spent well over two decades bringing us cinematic delights like the aforementioned action hit Die Hard and its four sequels, sci-fi action/adventure in The Fifth Element, the thrilling twist ending of The Sixth Sense (which had its 25th anniversary in 2024) and dozens of other beloved films. But, those of us who are old enough remember how wonderful it was to discover Willis’ talents on the hit ABC detective dramedy, Moonlighting.
That series, which ran for five seasons, is largely known for losing its spark once the main couple got together, but it also helped launch Willis’s career. It featured him as a private detective who’s forced to team up with a down-on-her-luck former supermodel, Maddie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd) to keep the detective agency she owns afloat. Creator Glenn Gordon Caron spoke to TV Insider about working with the up-and-coming actor, noting how important he felt it was to make sure Moonlighting could finally arrive on streaming, and said:
As I became aware of Bruce Willis’ illness, it became more urgent for me, because I knew a lot of the world knew him as this guy who carried a gun, but they didn’t know that he was this romantic leading man. They didn’t know that he’s incredibly funny and incredibly verbally dexterous. I would write these eight-page monologues for him at 5:30 a.m., and he’d had them memorized word-perfect by 7:20, largely because he was musical, and he approached everything as a musical proposition. He would call me from the stage, ‘You better get down here. I’m messing with your stuff’ because he would hear the meter being changed.
There are innumerable movies that feature the 12 Monkeys star as some variety of gun-toting tough guy, but as Caron noted, those who first got to know what Willis could do via Moonlighting quickly learned that he was just as funny and adept at delivering screwball comedy levels of speedy dialogue, along with being roguish and charming as all get out.
In fact, when the show finally hit streaming for the first time ever in the fall of 2023, Rumer Willis noted how watching her dad on the romantic series reminded her of her young daughter, because of the “little side smirk” and “[mischievous] twinkle in his eye” which she also saw in her child.
Caron opened up about his visits with Willis previously, noting how fast his condition had already deteriorated. When he spoke with TV Insider, he said:
I try to see Bruce once a month, not always successful. He has a disease that has completely diminished all his language skills. So while I go see him and while we talk, I’ll be honest, I don’t always know that he knows who I am; sometimes he does. I have had conversations where I’ve said, 'The show is coming back. We finally got the show,' and he seems pleased, but I would be dishonest if I told you that I knew the depth of his pleasure or how much of it he’s cognitively aware of.
A number of the best Bruce Willis movies are available to stream, and I doubt anyone would fault you for binging quite a few of them soon.
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