Bruce Willis, one of America’s biggest movie stars, has been diagnosed with aphasia. He is retiring from his acting career of over 40 years as a result of the diagnosis.
Aphasia is a neurological condition that impairs one’s ability to communicate. It affects the speech, writing and understanding of both spoken and written language. It usually happens all of a sudden after a stroke or a head injury. However, it can also be gradual as a result of a slow-growing brain tumour or a disease that causes progressive, permanent damage (degenerative).
Willis plies his trade in communication essentially as an actor so it is going to be heavy on him and his fans. The cognitive disability will inhibit him from acting.
Willis was born on March 19, 1955. In the 1970s, he began his career on Off-Broadway.
He rose to prominence from a comedy-drama series, Moonlighting (1985–1989) and has since appeared in over a hundred films. He became recognised as an action hero following his portrayal of John McClane in the Die Hard franchise (1988–2013) and other subsequent roles.
He married actress Demi Moore on November 21, 1987, and had three daughters. They later got divorced.
Willis has won various awards and has received honours throughout his career in television and film.
Here are his top five highest-grossing movies that will keep the memories of his active days in the minds of his fans.
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The Sixth Sense
The Sixth Sense tops the list of movies that will keep Willis in everyone’s mind. The movie was written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan in 1999. The Sixth Sense starred Bruce Willis as Dr Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist who treats a patient claiming he could see the dead.
The film raked in total revenue of $672,806,292.
Die Hard
Willis led a group of superstars in the Die Hard movie franchise to gross over $1 billion in revenue. The franchise consisted of ‘A Good Day to Die Hard, ‘Die Hard: With a Vengeance’, ‘Live Free or Die Hard’, ‘Die Hard 2: Die Harder’ .
Armageddon
Bruce Willis starred as Harry S. Stamper in this Michael Bay’s action-adventure. The movie debuted in theatres in 1998. Willis led a small group of deep-core drillers to break up a mass of asteroid hurtling towards Earth.
Worldwide the movie grossed $554,600,000.
Expendables 2
Bruce Willis was one of many famous faces to appear in Sylvester Stallone’s star-studded, blood-thirsty action sequel The Expendables 2. He played Mr Church, the guy who assembles the team and assigns them their mission.
The movie grossed $311,979,256 worldwide
The Fifth Component
Willis played Korben Dallas, a cab driver who ran into trouble picking up a mysterious ‘fifth element’ who is key to destroying an evil force that has broken out of a lab and is on the run from bad guys and the government, in the colourful 1997 sci-fi from Luc Besson.
The movie grossed $263,898,761 worldwide.
