The recent news that Bruce Willis was diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia saddened me greatly. Not as a movie fan or someone who is rapt over celebrity. But as someone who knew him.
I can’t claim Willis as a friend (unlike with our mutual friend, read on …). But I did spend a fair amount of time interacting with him before he became famous. And our transactional relationship gave me a front-row stool that provided insights into why he became a huge movie star as well as the cut of his jib as a man.
In the early 1980s, I was a vigorous souse whose weekend revelries in New York City were fueled by alcohol. I lived at the time on the Upper West Side, yet mainly roamed and imbibed in the clubs and watering holes of Downtown – Manhattan below 14th Street. As a serious drinker In the “city that never sleeps,” and where last call was four in the morning, happy hour for me was about nine or 10 in the evening. And for a while on most every weekend night, I would prime my boozer’s pump before heading down to Clubland at a clean, well-lighted and bustling watering hole called Cafe Central on Amsterdam Avenue at 75th Street.
Given my penchant for libations, I would do my best to snag a seat at the bar. You never knew who might wind up on a stool next to you: an interesting person to enjoy a conversation with or maybe an attractive lass to chat up and flirt with. Plus, and most importantly, I was just across the bar from the drink-slinger, which enabled a seamless flow of libations.
Behind that Cafe Central bar was a guy I knew only as Bruce. He had a twinkle in his eyes, a sly smile and a very friendly, likable vibe – key qualities for both a barkeep and a movie star. He was also a performer, as a good barkeep needs to be, who played his role with smooth assurance and finesse. All it took when I needed my next drink was to catch his eye and nod or point at my near-empty glass and a refill would happen as soon as he was able. If there was an Academy Awards for bartending, he wasn’t just Oscar-worthy, he was a Lifetime Achiever.
As a true tippler, I well understood that sliding generous tips across the bar was the best way to befriend a bartender as a regular. So I can in a small way say that I helped support Bruce Willis before he became rich and famous.
When his breakthrough role in “Moonlighting” hit the TV screens a few years later, I was an immediate avid convert, loved the show, especially Bruce. He and his role were this likable mix of hail fellow well met and smart wiseacre, but my synapses didn’t connect that he was the same guy who’d served me libations with such deft savvy.
He became a huge action star, and was really good at it, leavening the tough guy stuff with an insouciance that had made him shine behind the stick. The first two “Die Hard” movies are not-that-guilty pleasures of mine. Plus Willis later showed he had serious acting chops in serious films like “12 Monkeys” and “Pulp Fiction.”
Then as the ’80s were heading towards the end of the decade, I was talking with my friend and associate at the time, Mark Krantz, who booked the NYC roots music venue The Lone Star Cafe. He told me he’d snagged Willis, who was a friend of his, to play there in his singing musical guise as Bruno.
“You know Bruce, don’t you?” Mark said. “He used to bartend at The Tunnel ...” some other bar whose name escapes me, “… and Cafe Central.”
Boom! Epiphany! “Yeah, I DO know Bruce. Best bartender ever!”
One fine measure of a person in Bruce’s case is how his ex-wife, current wife and all his kids have rallied lovingly around him to soften the blow of his affliction. My heart goes out to those who love him. Fine actor, helluva bartender and a damn good man.
Documentary Film: “For the Love of Spock” – More family warmth pervades this look at actor Leonard Nimoy’s quite interesting life and career, directed by his son, and how his “Star Trek” character became a cultural icon.
Album: Savoy by Taj Mahal – The master modern blues and roots wizard travels back to the era of classic pop and R&B via a sophisticated, swinging and elegant musical time machine to etch his distinctive imprint onto some of the most enduring standards and bring the past vividly alive.
Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email robpatterson054@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, October 1, 2023
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