Cybill Shepherd “will always love” her Moonlight co-star Bruce Willis.
The actress praised her love interest on the small screen of 1980s drama, where they saw them play private detectives. Her comments follow Willis’ family’s announcement that he has withdrawn from acting after being diagnosed with aphasia, a condition in which a person loses the ability to communicate.
“I just have to say one thing about Bruce,” Shepherd said Additional this weekend at the Race to Erase MS Gala in LA “No one else ever came into consideration for the role as he walked into the venue.”
Bruce played David Addison for her Maddie Hayes, and they worked together at Blue Moon Investigations. Their chemistry on camera made them one of TV’s best couples.
“My temperature rose 10 degrees,” she said of their magic on screen. “It meant two things to me: One, I was very attracted to him. Two, I would never act on it because we were both very attracted to each other.”
She added: “I will always love Bruce.”
During Moonlight – which ran from March 1985 to May 1989 – Bruce married his first wife, Demi Moore, with whom he shares three grown children: Rumer, Scout and Tallulah. They divorced in 2000 and Willis remarried in 2009 to Emma Heming Willis. They are the parents of Mabel and Evelyn.
Emma, Demi and Bruce’s five children released a statement in March saying that Bruce would retire from the career he loved due to health reasons. The message coincided with one Los Angeles Times report in which nearly two dozen people who had been on the set with Bruce in recent years (mostly live-to-VOD movies) expressed concern about his well-being. They said he often seemed confused on the set when he once asked, “Why am I here?”
Bruce’s Moonlight role helped throw him to stardom. While he continued to be an action star in Die hard franchise, among many other film roles, he will always be remembered for the witty and playful role.
It was not to say that there was no drama between the co-stars. Shepherd, who is twice divorced, once told Weekly entertainment“I remember at one point in the show it had gotten to the point where we just hated each other. “However, she said the volatility made it work, she added.
Shepherd participated in Bruce’s Comedy Central roast in 2018 and made jokes about how they “hated each other” at times, which made the show, calling their working conditions “explosive”. She also said they had not kept in touch since the show ended. However, she also called him an “ingenious actor” and one of “the finest men I have ever known.” After the roasting part was over, they shared a nice hug.