Bruce Willis has now been diagnosed with dementia, his family has shared. Photo / @rumerwillis
OPINION:
During a career that has spanned three and a half decades, the actor Bruce Willis has battled all kinds of apparently implacable nemeses, from German terrorists to space aliens. And, in every case, Willis has come out on top, dispatching the forces of evil with little more than an immaculately delivered one-liner and an elegant display of physical force. But, alas, he is now facing a foe far more unbeatable and cruel than any of the hundreds of minions that he has slain on-screen: frontotemporal dementia.
It had already been announced by Willis’ family last year that he had retired from acting because of a diagnosis of aphasia, but the new development reveals – as if it needed to – that the actor’s condition is even more serious than initially feared. They have released a statement about the “cruel disease”, saying that, “Unfortunately, challenges with communication are just one symptom of the disease Bruce faces. While this is painful, it is a relief to finally have a clear diagnosis.”
Symptoms of FTD, as it is known, include personality changes, memory problems and, eventually, muscular and movement issues. It is a vile and unyielding illness, and there is no known cure for it.
Given what a tragedy it is for both Willis’ family and his millions of admirers that this great actor has been so afflicted, one might have hoped that those who have dealt with him professionally might show him the respect and privacy that he is due, rather than seeking to exploit him. But that hasn’t always been the case.
There had already been signs of this before Willis retired from acting in May 2022. Although a Los Angeles Times report about the actor’s condition suggested that it was only in the past few years that his illness has progressed to a stage where he has been unable to work with any special conviction – poignantly, he was quoted as saying on the set of one of his interchangeable B-movies, “I know why you’re here, and I know why you’re here, but why am I here?” – his ill health was the subject of prurient rumour right up until the initial announcement of his retirement from acting.
Gossip websites cited apparently well-informed sources that the actor had dementia and no longer knew what was going on. Now they have, regrettably, been proved correct.
An apparent detachment from his surroundings was an ongoing issue in Willis’ career as far back as 2015, although it was then treated as a subject for mockery. When he made his Broadway debut that year in a stage adaptation of Stephen King’s novel Misery, a sneering piece in the New York Post suggested that he “sports an earpiece the size of a cellphone circa 1984″ and that “spies who’ve seen it say it feels like a play by Harold Pinter. The excellent Laurie Metcalf says a line and then there … is … a … pause before Willis responds”.
It now makes perfect sense as to why the actor responsible for subtle, excellent performances in everything from The Sixth Sense and Pulp Fiction appeared in so many substandard films over the past decade. Or why his performance in M. Night Shyamalan’s 2019 hit Glass – his last mainstream leading role – was much criticised in some quarters for its near-catatonia. It seems wanted to take on as much work as he could before he was unable to do so, even if that meant filming extended cameos in a string of video-on-demand action films with titles such as American Siege or Out of Death (for which he was reportedly paid $2 million).
The most viscous jibe of all was bestowed by the Golden Raspberry Awards, which exemplified a sneering attitude towards Willis by creating a new category in last year’s ceremony entitled ‘Worst Performance by Bruce Willis in a 2021 Movie’, which nominated the actor for his eight performances in various undistinguished pictures over the year.
Yet, when the actor’s daughter Rumer made public her 67-year-old father’s diagnosis of the brain disorder aphasia and his subsequent “stepping away” from acting, it became embarrassingly clear that the Razzies, never a tactful or sophisticated organisation, had made a catastrophic error.
Their initial reaction was to tweet: “The Razzies are truly sorry for Bruce Willis’ diagnosed condition. Perhaps this explains why he wanted to go out with a bang in 2021. Our best wishes to Bruce and family.” The insincere tone of this was met with disapproval, and so, inevitably, Razzies co-founders John Wilson and Mo Murphy put out a solemn statement: “After much thought and consideration, the Razzies have made the decision to rescind the Razzie Award given to Bruce Willis, due to his recently disclosed diagnosis. If someone’s medical condition is a factor in their decision-making and/or their performance, we acknowledge that it is not appropriate to give them a Razzie.”
They, at least, issued a timely mea culpa. But there are others around Willis who have not exhibited anything like the same sensitivity. The film producer Randall Emmett, who employed Willis on many of the undistinguished B-pictures that the actor made in the final years of his career, has been accused of exploiting him.
Several sources have claimed that Emmett continued to employ Willis despite knowing of the difficulties that he faced with his health; as one props master told the Los Angeles Times, “Our stunt co-ordinator mentioned he was struggling. Our first AD saw he was struggling. You would have to be blind to not see him struggling.” Emmett was said to be miming actions from behind the video monitors, reducing Willis – once the most distinctive and charismatic of performers – to little more than a blank puppet.
This was denied by both the producer and the actor’s representatives. Emmett issued a statement declaring that “Randall is very proud of the work he and Bruce Willis have done over the last 15 years. In every single movie they have done together, Bruce enjoyed being on set, playing golf, going to dinners, and communing with the crew. If Bruce had not wanted to be on set, he would not have been there. Willis is one of the greatest actors of his time and was sought-after by multiple production companies until his recent retirement. Randall counts him among his closest friends”.
Willis’ attorney, meanwhile, issued the following comment: “My client continued working after his medical diagnosis because he wanted to work and was able to do so, just like many others diagnosed with aphasia who are capable of continuing to work. Because Mr. Willis appeared in those films, they could get financed. That resulted in literally thousands of people having jobs, many during the Covid-19 pandemic.”
This may have been a laudable aim – a committed actor wanting to work right up until the end – but the results were lamentable. In the last film of Willis’ to be released, Paradise City, he reunited with his Pulp Fiction and Look Who’s Talking co-star John Travolta. But it was regarded as just as weak as many of the other pictures that he had made, presumably for pure commercial reasons, over the past years of his career.
One critic, citing the Guns N’ Roses song of the same title, wrote “audiences will be begging, ‘Oh, won’t you please take me home’”. It was an inauspicious swansong for its star, but at least now there will be no further humiliation for him; his retirement is much regretted, but at least it will grant him the dignity that his near-exploitation did not offer.
Yet even as Willis and his family come to terms with what will inevitably be a compromising and undignified situation, the truly unethical have found a way to make money out of him. The “deepfake” phenomenon, in which an actor’s image can be digitally manipulated to make it appear as if they are participating in a project that they have no knowledge of, is widely regarded as dubious at best, but Willis has been one of the most high-profile victims of this exploitation.
In 2022, he was seen appearing in a Russian advertisement for a telecoms company – to general surprise, given the international situation – and purportedly issued a statement that he had sold his likeness to a business known as “Deepcake”. This proved to be inaccurate, and a spokesman for Willis was quick to clarify that he had “no partnership or agreement” with the company.
But this makes matters worse, not better: the unauthorised, unethical use of his famous face has set a worrying, even terrifying, precedent for how other actors will be similarly manipulated without their knowledge or consent.
Yet for the time being, his family have more pressing matters to deal with. For years, this great actor has been subject to a level of sneering and abuse that he has risen above with dignity and forbearance, but which must have been an added blow to him as he has struggled to cope with a life-changing diagnosis.
Whatever his recent output, there are around a couple of dozen films that make a decent case for Willis as one of the most underrated American actors of the past few decades. From his iconic turn as an ageing boxer in Pulp Fiction to his more recent, soulful supporting role as a doomed private detective in Edward Norton’s adaptation of Motherless Brooklyn, Willis has always been capable of giving superb performances that can be compared to any of his Oscar-winning peers.
It has been a pattern in Willis’ career that he was written off every few years and then returned with a brilliant performance in a superb film; Tarantino’s film was hailed as Willis’ great comeback way back in 1994. In 2012, his work on Moonrise Kingdom with Wes Anderson and in Looper with Rian Johnson showed the breadth of his talent in a way that his appearances in the same year’s The Expendables 2 and Fire with Fire did not.
In 2006, after being awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Willis said: “I used to come down here and look at these stars, and I could never quite figure out what you were supposed to do to get one... time has passed and now here I am doing this, and I’m still excited. I’m still excited to be an actor.” How cruel that he won’t get to be one again.
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