BRUCE WILLIS MY LIFE IN 10 Pictures

GROWING UP in Penns Grove, N.J, Walter Bruce Willis wasn't the wisecracking everyman that brought him fame.

“I had a terrible stutter,” he’s shared. “I thought I was handicapped. I couldn’t talk at all.” And while playing the class clown helped, it wasn’t until he took to theater that life changed. “When I memorized words, I didn’t stutter, which was just miraculous.” Eventually, he found the trademark voice that would carry him to fame — along the way co-founding Planet Hollywood and becoming a father to five daughters. But Bruce, who turns 70 on March 19, now faces his greatest challege yet, after being diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia two years ago. As his wife, Emma, recently shared, “What [he] is... is unconditional love. I feel blessed to know it, and it’s because of him.”

1 1985 MOON GLOW “All of a sudden I got this job. Then even more, all of a sudden this job became this hit show,” reflected Bruce of starring alongside Cybill Shepherd on TV’s Moonlighting. “I have always considered myself an actor, not a star of anything,” he’d say. “There’s no rule book. It’s very frightening.”

"I'm really just a regular guy who has had an incredibly blessed life." -Bruce Willis

2 1988 TO DIE FOR “Every film that I do is a learning experience. I think that Die Hard, the character I play, is closer to me than anything I’ve ever done,” he’d say of cop John McClane, whom Bruce played in four more pics.