Hollywood icon Bruce Willis retired from acting in last May due to health concerns. Initially, his family revealed that he was struggling with aphasia, but they later clarified that he had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. Due to these neurodegenerative diseases, Bruce Willis has lost many of his language skills.
In a recent interview with the New York Post, Bruce Willis’ friend and director, Glenn Gordon Caron, shared that the actor’s ability to communicate has significantly declined due to his battle with dementia. Caron also mentioned that he regularly visits the Die Hard actor, especially since his diagnosis earlier this year.
“The process [to get Moonlighting onto Hulu] has taken quite a while and Bruce’s disease is a progressive disease, so I was able to communicate with him, before the disease rendered him as incommunicative as he is now, about hoping to get the show back in front of people. I’m not always quite that good but I try and I do talk to him and his wife [Emma Heming Willis] and I have a casual relationship with his three older children. I have tried very hard to stay in his life. He’s an extraordinary person. The thing that makes [his disease] so mind-blowing is [that] if you’ve ever spent time with Bruce Willis, there is no one who had any more joie de vivre than him.”
Glenn Gordon Caron is known for creating the television series Moonlighting, which played a pivotal role in Willis’s rise to stardom in 1985.
Bruce Willis is No Longer Able To Read
The filmmaker also noted that Willis, who used to be a passionate reader, is no longer able to read.
Despite these challenges, Caron emphasized that when you are with Willis, you can still sense that he’s Bruce, and that presence is something to be grateful for. However, the vibrant enthusiasm for life that once defined him has diminished.
“He’s not totally verbal; he used to be a voracious reader — he didn’t want anyone to know that — and he’s not reading now. All those language skills are no longer available to him, and yet he’s still Bruce. When you’re with him you know that he’s Bruce and you’re grateful that he’s there but the joie de vivre is gone,”
Mr Caron first worked with Bruce Willis when he played David Addison Junior in the series Moonlighting, which ran from 1985-89.
All five seasons of Moonlighting are now streaming on Hulu.
