Demi Moore's stardom lasted only five years. But tiny five years. Anyone alive in the 90s remembers them longer because when Demi was a star she was a big one. She went from being the personification of feminine romanticism in 'Ghost' (short hair, white face, artistic vocation as a potter in counterpoint to her banker boyfriend) to representing like no one else the eroticism of consumer culture, inside and outside the screen.
Moore used her body as a tool to tell the movies about it: it was an object with a price in 'Indecent Proposal', a weapon in the war of the S- and power struggles in 'Harassment', and a vehicle to regain custody. of his daughter in 'Striptease', a symbol of shame in 'The Scarlet Letter' and survival armor in 'Lieutenant O'Neill'.
Eating disorders and family trauma of Demi Moore
As she tells in her autobiography, 'Inside Out, my story' (ed. Roca), public exposure of her body hid eating disorders, family traumas, and a meaningless marriage. Bruce Willis and Demi Moore were a sight together, another commodity in the Hollywood industry, but when the cameras went off there wasn't much else.
Moore met Willis at the premiere of 'Illegal Procedure' (1987), which she attended accompanying Emilio Estevez even though they had just broken off their relationship. "He doesn't take his eyes off you, he's been fascinated," Estevez told his ex-girlfriend, referring to the then-star of 'Moonlight'. She chatted with Willis and concluded that he was "a jerk": he had a date with another woman but kept hitting on Demi about her and trying to seduce her by imitating Tom Cruise in Cocktail.
Willis reminded him of his alcoholic father.
"Bruce was behind the bar, shaking the cocktail shaker and throwing ice cubes into the air, a spectacle that in 1987 was the bomb although now it seems regrettable," recalls the actress in her memories. Throughout the night, Willis displayed the "gentleman but braggart" charm (it's easy to imagine if you've seen any of his movies) and at the end, he wrote Demi's number on his arm. His unabashed, overpowering charisma reminded her of her father, an alcoholic hustler with whom Demi had a distant relationship.
She was attracted by the voracity with which Bruce lived life: he wasted money (as an anecdote, he tells that one night his daughter began to cry and he offered her a thousand dollars if she would change her diaper), he had a great time with fame and reveled in luxuries like a private jet to get around.
Demi was 25 years old and still a shy and self-conscious teenager, so in a way the world's image of her (a star so ambitious and exhibitionist that she came to be nicknamed Gimme More) was molded in imitation. to Willis's. Basically, what scandalized the press about Demi Moore's attitude was that she behaved with the freedom of a man. During a break from filming 'Die Die', Bruce and Demi got married in Las Vegas. She got pregnant that same night.
Few details define the Willis-Moore marriage as much as the fact that the studio they worked for, TriStar, produced an exuberant wedding for them when they returned from Las Vegas: the media coverage would be sensational publicity for their careers. It was held in a Warner studio, Little Richard officiated the ceremony and Annie Leibovitz took the photos. The combination of Bruce Willis (the tough, sly, deep-bottomed guy) and Demi Moore was greater than the sum of their two individual parts.
New Kind of Hollywood Star, Demi Moore
Between 1997 and 1998 they were the 90s version of Richard Burton and Liz Taylor and the fact that they were actually much more vulgar, less glamorous, and much less mysterious than Liz and Richard (they dressed, behaved, and spoke like what was then known derogatorily as "nouveau riche") played not against them but in favor: they represented a new type of stars, insatiable for attention, money and S-. They represented the mentality of the 90s.
And in a way they knew it, so part of their attraction arose from the euphoria of rising to triumph together and that, if the stars are products, they were worth much more married than separately. But early in their marriage, Willis was much more famous than Moore, so he wanted her to stay home and take care of her daughter while he went away to shoot.
"Otherwise this won't work," he explained. Back in 1990, when Moore overtook her husband in the rise to fame thanks to 'Ghost', he told her before traveling to Europe to shoot 'The Great Falcon' that he wasn't sure he wanted to stay married. She kept working because she felt like it because she craved industry validation and media attention and to rebel against it.
But as soon as she returned from Europe, Bruce became pregnant, so they decided to continue with her relationship as if nothing had happened. From that time are the N- photo sessions, the inaugurations of Planet Hollywood (the restaurant chain that Willis founded together with Stallone and Schwarzenegger, whose name makes it clear how fascinated those guys were with their own fame), and the premiere of 'La Lieutenant O'Neill' with Demi and Bruce shaved bald.
When asked by Vanity Fair (a story whose cover, featuring an N-, eight-month-pregnant Moore, caused heated controversies for and against) if she trusted her husband, Demi replied, "Can I trust anyone? Throughout my In life, many people have told me that I should trust people and that's what I do. I close my eyes and take the risk. But deep down, do I trust someone completely and blindly? I think not. I probably trust Bruce more than anyone. But if there is someone I trust, it is my daughter."
"But deep down, do I trust someone completely and blindly? I think not," Demi said.
After having their third daughter, Bruce and, Demi realized that they had been married for eight years and barely knew each other. She was so afraid of being dependent on a man that she put up emotional walls around her so that he couldn't, when the time came, hurt her. But those walls also served to keep him from getting near her.
An unknown marriage of Demi Moore and Bruce Willis
"I have a feeling if I wasn't here you'd just go on with your life, you wouldn't even know the difference," Bruce told Demi. She reflects in her book that their courtship "had been very short-lived, as we soon had our first daughter. Our unbridled, uninterrupted passion and love gave birth to a family. And it all happened in a matter of months. Then, when everything started to settle down and we were faced with reality head-on, I don't know if we really knew each other. We had a life that was based on coordinating details and trying to synchronize our work schedules."
During the first two years of Tallulah, her third daughter, each of her parents made eight films. Each one of her dedicated all her time and her energy to her career and the only thing that united them was the illusion of starting a family. Willis's mood swings and Moore's emotional withdrawal led to a very independent relationship, which they both thought was great until they realized they lived far apart and it was too late to really get to know each other.
Daughters and new partner, Ashton Kutcher
The marriage broke up while Demi took care of her dying mother and Bruce decided to buy a house next to the family residence, a mansion in the middle of the field in Hailey (Idaho), to visit his daughters every day. Moore took a five-year professional break to care for them and make sure the divorce affected them as little as possible. When she introduced her next partner, the actor Ashton Kutcher (to whom she was married between 2005 and 2010), in society at the premiere of her return to the cinema 'Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle', she did so also accompanied by her daughters and her ex-husband.
Demi Moore then explained that only after they separated did they learn to love each other and that she considers Willis her best friend. Demi is 57 years old and Bruce is 64. He has had two more children with his partner and the eight of them spend Christmas together. The couple who represented Hollywood in its purest form took advantage of the stagnation in their careers to finally behave like normal human beings. And both consider that this has been the greatest triumph of their lives.
