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Anonymous ID: 2b04d6 March 30, 2022, 2:20 p.m. No.15978658   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>8680 >>8700 >>8986 >>9046 >>9071 >>9121 >>9204 >>9287 >>9348

Bruce Willis, diagnosed with aphasia, steps away from acting

FILE - In this Friday, Oct. 11, 2019, file photo, Bruce Willis attends the "Motherless…

 

Sykes/Invision/AP)

By JAKE COYLE

Published: Mar. 30, 2022 at 12:59 PM EDT|Updated: 58 minutes ago

 

NEW YORK (AP) — Bruce Willis is stepping away from acting after a diagnosis of aphasia, a condition that causes loss of the ability to understand or express speech, his family said Wednesday.

 

In a statement posted on Willis’ Instagram page, the 67-year-old actor’s family announced that Willis was recently diagnosed with aphasia and that it is impacting his cognitive abilities.

 

“As a result of this and with much consideration, Bruce is stepping away from the career that has meant so much to him,” read the statement signed by Willis’ wife, Emma Heming Willis, his ex-wife Demi Moore, and his five children, Rumer, Scout, Tallulah, Mabel and Evelyn.

 

“We are moving through this as a strong family unit, and wanted to bring his fans in because we know how much he means to you, as you do to him,” they said. “As Bruce always says, ‘Live it up’ and together we plan to do just that.”

 

There are many potential causes of aphasia. It often occurs after a stroke or head injury, but can also develop gradually due to a slow-growing brain tumor or a disease that causes degenerative damage, like Alzheimer’s disease. It’s treated primarily with speech therapy and learning non-verbal means of communication.

 

Willis’ family didn’t divulge what caused his aphasia. Representatives for the actor declined to comment.

 

The news about Willis, one of Hollywood’s most beloved actors, immediately spread online as fans reacted. His four-decade career has amassed more than $5 billion in box office worldwide,

 

Willis had been working steadily and frequently. Renowned for films like “Die Hard,” “Pulp Fiction” and “The Sixth Sense,” Willis has in recent years churned out straight-to-video thrillers. Last year, he starred in a staggering eight films. Most came and went quietly, including titles like “Cosmic Sin,” “Out of Death” and “Deadlock.”

 

Most recently, Willis starred in February’s “Gasoline Alley” and “A Day to Die,” released in early March. Willis has already shot at least six more films due out in 2022 and 2023, including “Die Like Lovers,” “Corrective Measures” and “The Wrong Place.”

 

https://www.kfyrtv.com/2022/03/30/bruce-willis-stepping-away-acting-amid-health-struggles/

Anonymous ID: 2b04d6 March 30, 2022, 2:23 p.m. No.15978680   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>8751 >>8986 >>9046 >>9204 >>9287 >>9348

>>15978658

Bruce Willis, stepping away from career, leaves behind prodigious film legacy

In a career that spans nearly 40 years, the actor constantly defied his doubters and pulled off comeback after comeback, surprising audiences with his range.

The big-screen acting career of Bruce Willis is at once archetypal and unclassifiable.

He is a vintage Hollywood he-man, the brawny and wisecracking action heavyweight who walks on shards of glass in "Die Hard" and nukes an asteroid in "Armageddon."

But he confounds audiences, too: campy in "Death Becomes Her," soulful in "The Sixth Sense," tender in "Moonrise Kingdom." How many Reagan-era stars fit in the world of Wes Anderson?

The news on Wednesday that Willis, 67, plans to step away from acting because of a medical condition is a blow to fans who followed his career ups and downs for decades — flops to comebacks, direct-to-DVD oddities to big-budget spectacles.

"Bruce has been experiencing some health issues and has recently been diagnosed with aphasia, which is impacting his cognitive abilities," the actor's eldest daughter, Rumer Willis, wrote in an Instagram post.

"As a result of this and with much consideration Bruce is stepping away from the career that has meant so much to him," she added.

It remains to be seen whether Willis might return to acting, but the news brings a close — for now — to one of modern Hollywood’s signature and most consistently surprising careers.

Willis shot to fame in 1985 with the quirky, gleefully meta ABC series "Moonlighting," opposite Cybill Shepherd. Willis and Shepherd, playing private detectives, regularly broke the fourth wall, directly addressing the audience or riffing on prime-time TV clichés.

The series offered early proof of the actor's abilities. He was instantly convincing as a wiseacre cop, but he seemed equally comfortable with the show's flights of fancy, like a black-and-white dream sequence that paid homage to 1940s noir.

"Moonlighting" made him a name, but "Die Hard" (1988) made him a brand. John McClane, the weary but agile New York City detective who takes on terrorists inside Nakatomi Plaza, cemented the actor in the pantheon of action heroes. It remains his defining screen role.

"Die Hard" also provides an instructive lesson in his appeal. McClane is essentially a gun-toting superhero, but he is also an American everyman: a workaholic husband trying to make amends, stuck inside an office building in a blood-stained tank top.

In contrast to some other 1980s "hard bodies," Willis was clearly not content to keep milking the same genre ad infinitum. In the second decade of his national stardom, he pushed himself into more challenging territory.

Of course, not all of those bets paid off. "The Bonfire of the Vanities" and "Hudson Hawk" were box-office disasters that dented his industry standing.

But as ever, Willis was a master of surprise.

He rebounded with his turn as Butch, a prizefighter who refuses to take a dive, in Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction," an explosive cultural phenomenon that also helped revive the career of co-star John Travolta.

"Pulp Fiction" was perfectly suited to his gifts as a performer. Tarantino's dialogue — a heady mix of hard-boiled aphorisms, lowbrow allusions and mock-philosophical banter — allowed Willis to show off his tonal range….

 

"I fully support Bruce and his family during this challenging time and admire him for his courage in battling this incredibly difficult medical condition," Emmett said.

"Bruce will always be part of our family," he added.

Every now and then, amid the torrent of B-movies, Willis showed that old skill for rattling expectations. He is unexpectedly touching as a melancholy police captain in "Moonrise Kingdom" and poignant as a widowed assassin facing off against his younger self in "Looper."

No matter what comes next, Willis' legacy is assured. He could do it all — and through sheer determination, he did.

https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/celebrity/bruce-willis-stepping-away-career-leaves-prodigious-film-legacy-rcna22250