As Bruce Willis’ frontotemporal dementia worsens, Moonlighting creator Glenn Gordon Caron has been making it a point to see him as often as possible. Following one of his visits, he has given an update on the actor’s condition.
“My sense is the first one to three minutes [into my visit] he knows who I am,” Caron, 69, told the New York Post of Willis, 68, on Wednesday, October 11. “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.”
Caron, who collaborated with Willis on Moonlighting from 1985 to 1989, said he occasionally sees the actor he knew back then. On the Emmy-winning series, Willis portrayed David Addison Jr. with Maddie Hayes, played by Cybill Shepherd.
“When you’re with him you know that he’s Bruce and you’re grateful that he’s there,” Caron said, adding, “but the joie de vivre is gone.”
After receiving a diagnosis of the language condition aphasia, Willis’ family announced in March 2022 that he would be retiring from acting. The Six Sense actor’s diagnosis had been amended to include frontotemporal dementia (also known as FTD), for which there is no cure, Demi Moore, Willis’ ex-wife, disclosed in February.
Moore, 60, who was married to Willis from 1987 to 1998, has been outspoken about her support for him throughout his health battle.
Rumer, 35, Scout, 32, and Tallulah Willis, 29, the three daughters of the ex-couple, have all been present to assist their father as much as possible.
Along with his two kids, Mabel, 11, and Evelyn, 9, and his wife, Emma Heming Willis, whom he married in 2009, Bruce also has a close group of friends.
Heming Willis, 45, updated her followers on her husband’s health last month in observance of International Frontotemporal Dementia Awareness Week.
“What I’m learning is that dementia is hard. It’s hard on the person diagnosed,” she shared on the September 25 episode of the Today show. “It’s also hard on the family, and that is no different for Bruce or myself or our girls. When they say that this is a family disease, it really is.”
Heming Willis explained that it feels like a “blessing and [a] curse” to be aware of Bruce’s official diagnosis because she can “finally understand what was happening so that I can be into the acceptance of what is.”
She noted that despite his declining health, Bruce is the “gift that keeps on giving” for his loved ones. “There’s so many beautiful things happening in our lives. It’s just really important for me to look up from the grief and the sadness so that I can see what is happening around us,” Heming Willis added. “And Bruce would really want us to be in the joy of what is. He would really want that for me and my family.”
Caron, for his part, disclosed on Wednesday that while attempting to get Moonlight on Hulu, he had been keeping Bruce informed. Caron told The Post, “I know he’s really happy that the show is going to be available for people, even though he can’t tell me that. “We talked about it when I got to spend time with him, and I know he’s excited.”
The director stated that he has consistently “tried very hard to stay” involved in Bruce’s life over the years.
“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 he,” Caron continued. “He loved life and … just adored waking up every morning and trying to live life to its fullest. So the idea that he now sees life through a screen door, if you will, makes very little sense. He’s really an amazing guy.”