The inside story of the most influential action movie ever—told by the people who made it.
Before a popcorny era of optimism filled theaters with the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, an aspiring actor from South Jersey nicknamed “Bruno” was tending bar on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The harmonica-playing server soon landed on the small screen in the ABC series Moonlighting—then, unexpectedly, ignited multiplexes everywhere as his signature pain-in-the-ass John McClane.
Bruce Willis’s breakout in Die Hard cemented him as the blue-collar antihero with the worst luck, forever surrounded by terrorists taking over something or other. Die Hard: An Oral History offers a peek inside the Hollywood eighties-action scene and the events that produced a seminal blockbuster franchise and launched the actor’s legendary career.