The AT40 Blog/January 31, 1987 ... Long Before He Became "Bruce Willis"

Long before there was "The Whole Nine Yards," then "The Whole Ten Yards." Long before there was "The Sixth Sense." Long before there was "The Last Boy Scout" and "12 Monkeys" and long before he was saving dozens of lives in the all-time greatest action movie made, "Die Hard," Bruce Willis was Bruno Radolini.

Bruce Willis was also David Addison Jr. And before that Bruce Willis was Tony Amato in a 1984 first-season episode of Miami Vice. Imagine that -- a show that brought two first-time Top 40 music artists. In the fall of 1986, it was Sonny Crockett himself, Don Johnson, hitting No. 5 with "Heartbeat."

And then on January 31, 1987, it was Willis' turn to hit the Top 40 with his remake of the Staple Singers' signature song, "Respect Yourself," the highest Top 40 debut of the week at No. 33. The original hit No. 12 in 1971, but Willis would climb to No. 5 with the remake by March 1987, helped tremendously by the late June Pointer of the Pointer Sisters on backing vocals.

Yes, before he became a mega-star on the big screen, Bruce Willis, born March 19, 1955 in Idar-Oberstein, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany to an American soldier and German-born mom, was the oldest of four children. His family moved to within steps of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, living in Penns Grove, N.J. and attending Penns Grove High School where he dealt with a stutter going throughout his childhood and was nicknamed "Buck-Buck." But he was able to overcome that stutter by staying busy in school activities such as student council and the drama club, which allowed him to "act out" what he was going through.

After graduating high school, Willis bounced around jobs, from security guard at a nuclear plant in Salem County, N.J. to transporting work crews at the DuPont Chambers Works factory in Deepwater, N.J. His next job was as a private investigator, and it was there that he decided to take control of his own life. Instead of doing odd jobs, Willis was off to become an actor. He enrolled at Montclair State College in New Jersey and was part of the class production of the show Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.

By his junior there, though, Willis left to go to New York and become a bartender at the art bar Kamikaze on West 19th Street. That was his "other" job. While making mixed drinks and serving beer, Willis was also trying to make a name in off-Broadway plays such as Heaven On Earth, Fool For Love and for four years, he starred in the production of writer-director Dennis Watlington's Bullpen.

That gave Willis the courage to head cross country to Hollywood and try to make it there. And his first break at 29 years old came in that episode of Miami Vice called "No Exit" in which he plays an abuse drug dealer named Tony Amato. Then he got to play a role in the opening episode of the new Twilight Zone called "Shatterday." With those roles under his belt, he auditioned for the role of the wise-cracking, far-from-serious David Addison on the television show Moonlighting and won the role opposite co-star Cybill Shepherd reportedly against 3,000 other hopefuls. He made his mark in comedy and in 1986 earned an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama for Moonlighting.

His confidence sky-high, Willis decided to go after his next dream -- music recording. A demo he recorded impressed the legendary Motown Records to take a chance on this white man with love for blues and R&B. Produced by future Fox Music president Robert Kraft, Willis recorded the album/CD "The Return Of Bruno," helped out by legendary veterans such as Ruth and June Pointer, Booker T. Jones of Booker T. & The MG's fame and the one and only Temptations. Willis remade "Secret Agent Man," "Under The Boardwalk" and "Young Blood" on the album as well as "Respect Yourself."

Alongside of "The Return Of Bruno" was a Spinal Tap-like mockumentary which aired on HBO and would ultimately released via VHS. Playing his alter ego, legendary blues singer Bruno Radolini, Willis was helped out in the special by fellow legends Ringo Starr, Elton John and Phil Collins.

The album hit the Top 15 on the Top 200 album chart and though he did not have another hit in this country from the album -- or ever again for that matter -- Willis would hit No. 2 in England with his remake of "Under The Boardwalk."

Later in 1987, a year that saw mega-success in Willis' career which also saw him star in his first movie, The Blind Date opposite Kim Basinger, Willis was approached by producers Lawrence Gordon and Joel Silver to play the lead of John McClane in Die Hard. The rest, they say, is history.

And Bruce Willis became a mega-star.

But before that, he was a whole bunch of people. Musically, he was Bruno Radolini and he made a name in that circle, even if that circle didn't last that long.

While Willis began his climb up the Top 40, Billy Vera & The Beaters were at No. 1 for the second straight week with "At This Moment," the 1981 chart single revived by the NBC television show Family Ties. Madonna, though, was up two notches to No. 2 with "Open Your Heart," the fourth single release from the album/CD "True Blue."