‘Moonlighting’ creator says Bruce Willis is ‘still Bruce’ despite not being ‘totally verbal’

By Lisa Respers France, CNN

(CNN) — Glenn Gordon Caron said that while his friend Bruce Willis can no longer communicate in all the same ways, he knows Willis is happy about his show “Moonlighting” finally coming to streaming.

Caron, who was a creator of the show in which Willis starred in during the 1980s, talked to the New York Post about his friend, whom he said he tries to see around once or month or so.

“I know he’s really happy that the show is going to be available for people,” Caron said.

“Moonlighting,” a beloved romantic comedy series starring Willis and Cybil Shepherd as private investigators, is now streaming on Hulu.

“The process [to get ‘Moonlighting’ onto Hulu] has taken quite a while and Bruce’s disease is a progressive disease, so I was able to communicate with him, before the disease rendered him as incommunicative as he is now, about hoping to get the show back in front of people,” Caron said. “I know it means a lot to him.”

It was announced last year that Willis would be stepping away from his career due to cognitive issues. He has since been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), which is a progressive brain condition.

Part of the tragedy of Willis’ diagnosis, his friend said, is that “no one who had any more joie de vivre than” Willis.

“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 said. “When you’re with him you know that he’s Bruce and you’re grateful that he’s there, but the joie de vivre is gone.”

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