A few years ago, my father had a stroke. I went with him to be hospital, and when he arrived in the ambulance, he had lost all ability to speak except for the words "yes" and "no". But he could...
Exemplary
A few years ago, my father had a stroke. I went with him to be hospital, and when he arrived in the ambulance, he had lost all ability to speak except for the words "yes" and "no". But he could still perfectly understand everything that was said to him. It was pretty terrifying to witness, and must have been even worse to experience. Thankfully, he was able to make an almost complete recovery, but there is still some residual aphasia.
My dad is still able to do his job, which involves a lot of talking all day. Most of his colleagues probably don't notice anything. It's mostly when he gets tired that it becomes apparent. You know that feeling when you know what you want to say, the word is at the tip of your tongue, but you've temporarily forgotten it? Everyone experiences that occasionally. My father experiences it far more frequently than the average person. It can be very frustrating. There's so many times when he has to stop in the middle of a sentence to think of a word, and he goes, "don't say it" - we can usually guess the word from context - "let me think of it."
He also mixes up words. Sometimes it's antonyms - hot instead of cold, high instead of low. Sometimes it's substituting one word for a different word that belongs to the same category of things - apple instead of banana, wrench instead of hammer.
But through it all, it didn't affect his intellect. He's still as clever as ever, albeit more prone to fatigue. My father's case is fairly mild, aside from during the stroke itself. It's purely expressive, meaning it affects only production of speech, not comprehension. It's also not progressive: it was caused by brain damage during the stroke, and once that was treated, no additional damage occurred. It won't get worse with time, but could potentially get better. There are many different forms of aphasia, with different causes and different prognoses. If it's the result of a one-time event like a stroke or head trauma, it doesn't get worse over time. If it's caused by some other neurodegenerative disease, it could get worse over time, and other symptoms could follow.
I haven't really talked about this to anyone outside of my family, but I figured I'd share my perspective. I don't know what's the cause of Willis' aphasia, whether it affects comprehension/production/both, how severe it is, whether it will get worse over time. But I've witnessed how frustrating it can be even in a mild form.
I had heard those rumours that he had dementia[1] in the last few years, and that's why he's been doing these very fly-by-night movies where he doesn't put in a big acting performance. I didn't...
I had heard those rumours that he had dementia[1] in the last few years, and that's why he's been doing these very fly-by-night movies where he doesn't put in a big acting performance. I didn't expect to see this basically publicly confirmed. A sad state of affairs for an actor with such a wealth of notable performances.
In an odd turn, the RedLetterMedia guys published a video about a month ago (before the news broke) about the recent odd turn in low budget Bruce Willis movies (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cd1eNS9HtXo), and then again about 2 weeks ago had to publish another video (still before the news broke) discussing the possibility of the cognitive decline of Willis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbLk4ktAE5U) and it being the possible reason he is doing these movies (while trying to be sensitive about the at-the-time-rumour). I had seen those videos and still did not expect this news to break so soon.
In the end I'll always remember him from his awesome performances in movies such as Die Hard, Pulp Fiction, The Fifth Element, etc.. He has a great legacy amongst him.
[1] Note: the rumours were dementia, he doesn't seem to have dementia, the family is saying it is specifically aphasia the rumours were saying dementia, the family has only confirmed he's experiencing aphasia.
Aphasia is a symptom, usually caused by something else. It's a bit like saying "he doesn't have a traumatic head injury, he has a headache". Aphasia could be the symptom of some other...
[1] Note: the rumours were dementia, he doesn't seem to have dementia, the family is saying it is specifically aphasia
Aphasia is a symptom, usually caused by something else. It's a bit like saying "he doesn't have a traumatic head injury, he has a headache". Aphasia could be the symptom of some other neurodegenerative disease, head trauma, or stroke. Even in the rare cases of primary progressive aphasia, that is considered a form of frontotemporal dementia. We don't know what caused the aphasia in this case. Depending on the cause, it could be the start of more serious symptoms or it might be as bad as it's ever going to get already.
I was about to mention the recent RLM videos too. I love RLM, but I also think they need to learn a bit of a lesson from all this since they went pretty hard on the (now, in retrospect) ableist...
I was about to mention the recent RLM videos too. I love RLM, but I also think they need to learn a bit of a lesson from all this since they went pretty hard on the (now, in retrospect) ableist jokes, and speculation about Willis just being "lazy", "greedy", and "phoning it in" in the first video. So hopefully they tone that shit down a bit in the future, and treat such subjects more like they did in the second video.
For an actor, though, I gotta imagine aphasia is basically like trying to be a surgeon with shaky hands. It seems like an ailment specifically tuned to destroy a key skill for the craft. More...
[1] Note: the rumours were dementia, he doesn't seem to have dementia, the family is saying it is specifically aphasia
For an actor, though, I gotta imagine aphasia is basically like trying to be a surgeon with shaky hands. It seems like an ailment specifically tuned to destroy a key skill for the craft.
More disturbing than the diagnosis, though, seems to be the way the people around him have been doing this sort of "Weekend at Bernies" style masquerade to prop him up and keep cashing checks. After seeing what happened to Stan Lee in his later years, I'm kind of horrified and disgusted by the extent of elder abuse that seems to haunt stars as they get older. It seems like they're easily victimized by their own retinue of attendants (often times including members of their own families) to exploit their status for money.
AFAIK there is absolutely no evidence of anyone, either his family or recent project collaborators, taking advantage of, or manipulating, Bruce Willis. And based on all the other discussions I...
the people around him have been doing this sort of "Weekend at Bernies" style masquerade to prop him up and keep cashing checks
AFAIK there is absolutely no evidence of anyone, either his family or recent project collaborators, taking advantage of, or manipulating, Bruce Willis. And based on all the other discussions I have read about aphasia, it's likely he was (and still is) fully cognizant, but merely unable to effectively verbally communicate anymore. So I have no idea where you're getting the "Weekend At Bernie's" and elder abuse accusation from.
IMO, he probably just agreed to act in all those recently made B-movies since they required very little effort on his part (only needing to show up for one day of filming), the producers were willing to accommodate his new disability (by feeding him lines through an earpiece), and they paid him incredibly well for it too (reportedly a $million+ per movie). All so he could make as much money for his family as possible before his potentially still worsening condition finally made it impossible for him to continue working at all.
Not to rest too much on one article, but this one in the LA Times hints at it. His agents were booking him on this stuff while directors and producers apparently didn't know what they were getting...
His agents were booking him on this stuff while directors and producers apparently didn't know what they were getting into.
Willis’ longtime management team — including a powerhouse group of agents at the Creative Artists Agency — made sure that his film shoots were limited to two days. The actor’s contracts stipulated that he was not to work more than eight hours a day, but he often stayed for only four, according to production sources.
Some film directors told The Times that they were startled by Willis’ condition in the last year.
And it was bad enough that it actually presented a material danger to people on set:
“I’m supposed to think my life is about to end, and then my dad steps in to save the day,” Kent said, describing how her back was to Willis in the scene. Willis was meant to deliver a line that served as Kent’s cue to duck before he fired the weapon at a bad guy. Instead, he shot the gun before delivering the line — and the actress was unable to duck.
“Because my back was to him, I wasn’t aware of what was happening behind me. But the first time, it was like, ‘No big deal, let’s reset,’” she said.
And the stronger hints come at the mentions of his entourage in the last third of the article. It doesn't say it explicitly, but reading between the lines it's hard to avoid the conclusion that people are putting him up to something that he shouldn't be doing.
That article does paint a slightly less flattering picture of the situation and does bring up some valid questions about his mental state... but IMO attempting to suggest that what was said by...
That article does paint a slightly less flattering picture of the situation and does bring up some valid questions about his mental state... but IMO attempting to suggest that what was said by anyone is clear evidence of elder abuse or coercion, even the entourage part, is a mighty stretch. Friends, family, and his agents being overly protective of him, and being secretive about his condition, doesn't necessarily mean they're doing so because they're secretly taking advantage of him.
Right? I'd imagine if I was slowly mentally declining, the feeling of being useless at my previous profession, which I absolutely kicked ass at, would absolutely haunt me. I can easily imagine...
Right? I'd imagine if I was slowly mentally declining, the feeling of being useless at my previous profession, which I absolutely kicked ass at, would absolutely haunt me. I can easily imagine that he'd want to continue acting, even if it's hardly possible for him. Heck, I'd expect a hypothetical fully demented actor to want to continue acting.
To give Willis his (assumed) wish and put him in front of a camera for a few hours every other day, that's not bad. If Willis was hard to work with the last year, that's a different matter, but not one of elder abuse.
It doesn't say it explicitly, but reading between the lines it's hard to avoid the conclusion that people are putting him up to something that he shouldn't be doing
I'm not sure how that works, but I'd 100% watch a movie in which Bruce Willis didn't say a single word. But yeah, there's no evidence whatsoever that he's been taken advantage at all. Why would...
I'm not sure how that works, but I'd 100% watch a movie in which Bruce Willis didn't say a single word.
But yeah, there's no evidence whatsoever that he's been taken advantage at all. Why would you say that?
For those, like myself, who weren't aware of what aphasia is.
Bruce Willis is stepping away from acting after a diagnosis of aphasia, a condition that causes loss of the ability to understand or express speech, his family announced Wednesday.
For those, like myself, who weren't aware of what aphasia is.
That is so sad. Bruce is one of my favorite actors. Contained actors, like him and Eastwood, are not celebrated enough. Crying and shouting gives you awards, but people like him, who are able to...
That is so sad. Bruce is one of my favorite actors. Contained actors, like him and Eastwood, are not celebrated enough.
Crying and shouting gives you awards, but people like him, who are able to convey so much emotion without doing much, are often overlooked. From Die Hard to Sixth Sense, the guy is an underestimated genius.
This is truly sad. It's easy to look at the last decade of his work and make jokes, but Bruce Willis is a truly iconic actor. He's been in some of the biggest, most popular, and most influential...
This is truly sad. It's easy to look at the last decade of his work and make jokes, but Bruce Willis is a truly iconic actor. He's been in some of the biggest, most popular, and most influential movies of all time. He's left a pretty big mark on both the film industry and pop culture as a whole.
A few years ago, my father had a stroke. I went with him to be hospital, and when he arrived in the ambulance, he had lost all ability to speak except for the words "yes" and "no". But he could still perfectly understand everything that was said to him. It was pretty terrifying to witness, and must have been even worse to experience. Thankfully, he was able to make an almost complete recovery, but there is still some residual aphasia.
My dad is still able to do his job, which involves a lot of talking all day. Most of his colleagues probably don't notice anything. It's mostly when he gets tired that it becomes apparent. You know that feeling when you know what you want to say, the word is at the tip of your tongue, but you've temporarily forgotten it? Everyone experiences that occasionally. My father experiences it far more frequently than the average person. It can be very frustrating. There's so many times when he has to stop in the middle of a sentence to think of a word, and he goes, "don't say it" - we can usually guess the word from context - "let me think of it."
He also mixes up words. Sometimes it's antonyms - hot instead of cold, high instead of low. Sometimes it's substituting one word for a different word that belongs to the same category of things - apple instead of banana, wrench instead of hammer.
But through it all, it didn't affect his intellect. He's still as clever as ever, albeit more prone to fatigue. My father's case is fairly mild, aside from during the stroke itself. It's purely expressive, meaning it affects only production of speech, not comprehension. It's also not progressive: it was caused by brain damage during the stroke, and once that was treated, no additional damage occurred. It won't get worse with time, but could potentially get better. There are many different forms of aphasia, with different causes and different prognoses. If it's the result of a one-time event like a stroke or head trauma, it doesn't get worse over time. If it's caused by some other neurodegenerative disease, it could get worse over time, and other symptoms could follow.
I haven't really talked about this to anyone outside of my family, but I figured I'd share my perspective. I don't know what's the cause of Willis' aphasia, whether it affects comprehension/production/both, how severe it is, whether it will get worse over time. But I've witnessed how frustrating it can be even in a mild form.
I had heard those rumours that he had dementia[1] in the last few years, and that's why he's been doing these very fly-by-night movies where he doesn't put in a big acting performance. I didn't expect to see this basically publicly confirmed. A sad state of affairs for an actor with such a wealth of notable performances.
In an odd turn, the RedLetterMedia guys published a video about a month ago (before the news broke) about the recent odd turn in low budget Bruce Willis movies (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cd1eNS9HtXo), and then again about 2 weeks ago had to publish another video (still before the news broke) discussing the possibility of the cognitive decline of Willis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbLk4ktAE5U) and it being the possible reason he is doing these movies (while trying to be sensitive about the at-the-time-rumour). I had seen those videos and still did not expect this news to break so soon.
In the end I'll always remember him from his awesome performances in movies such as Die Hard, Pulp Fiction, The Fifth Element, etc.. He has a great legacy amongst him.
[1] Note:
the rumours were dementia, he doesn't seem to have dementia, the family is saying it is specifically aphasiathe rumours were saying dementia, the family has only confirmed he's experiencing aphasia.Aphasia is a symptom, usually caused by something else. It's a bit like saying "he doesn't have a traumatic head injury, he has a headache". Aphasia could be the symptom of some other neurodegenerative disease, head trauma, or stroke. Even in the rare cases of primary progressive aphasia, that is considered a form of frontotemporal dementia. We don't know what caused the aphasia in this case. Depending on the cause, it could be the start of more serious symptoms or it might be as bad as it's ever going to get already.
Ah that's interesting to know, I edited my comment to (hopefully) be more accurate with that information.
I was about to mention the recent RLM videos too. I love RLM, but I also think they need to learn a bit of a lesson from all this since they went pretty hard on the (now, in retrospect) ableist jokes, and speculation about Willis just being "lazy", "greedy", and "phoning it in" in the first video. So hopefully they tone that shit down a bit in the future, and treat such subjects more like they did in the second video.
For an actor, though, I gotta imagine aphasia is basically like trying to be a surgeon with shaky hands. It seems like an ailment specifically tuned to destroy a key skill for the craft.
More disturbing than the diagnosis, though, seems to be the way the people around him have been doing this sort of "Weekend at Bernies" style masquerade to prop him up and keep cashing checks. After seeing what happened to Stan Lee in his later years, I'm kind of horrified and disgusted by the extent of elder abuse that seems to haunt stars as they get older. It seems like they're easily victimized by their own retinue of attendants (often times including members of their own families) to exploit their status for money.
AFAIK there is absolutely no evidence of anyone, either his family or recent project collaborators, taking advantage of, or manipulating, Bruce Willis. And based on all the other discussions I have read about aphasia, it's likely he was (and still is) fully cognizant, but merely unable to effectively verbally communicate anymore. So I have no idea where you're getting the "Weekend At Bernie's" and elder abuse accusation from.
IMO, he probably just agreed to act in all those recently made B-movies since they required very little effort on his part (only needing to show up for one day of filming), the producers were willing to accommodate his new disability (by feeding him lines through an earpiece), and they paid him incredibly well for it too (reportedly a $million+ per movie). All so he could make as much money for his family as possible before his potentially still worsening condition finally made it impossible for him to continue working at all.
Not to rest too much on one article, but this one in the LA Times hints at it.
His agents were booking him on this stuff while directors and producers apparently didn't know what they were getting into.
And it was bad enough that it actually presented a material danger to people on set:
And the stronger hints come at the mentions of his entourage in the last third of the article. It doesn't say it explicitly, but reading between the lines it's hard to avoid the conclusion that people are putting him up to something that he shouldn't be doing.
That article does paint a slightly less flattering picture of the situation and does bring up some valid questions about his mental state... but IMO attempting to suggest that what was said by anyone is clear evidence of elder abuse or coercion, even the entourage part, is a mighty stretch. Friends, family, and his agents being overly protective of him, and being secretive about his condition, doesn't necessarily mean they're doing so because they're secretly taking advantage of him.
Right? I'd imagine if I was slowly mentally declining, the feeling of being useless at my previous profession, which I absolutely kicked ass at, would absolutely haunt me. I can easily imagine that he'd want to continue acting, even if it's hardly possible for him. Heck, I'd expect a hypothetical fully demented actor to want to continue acting.
To give Willis his (assumed) wish and put him in front of a camera for a few hours every other day, that's not bad. If Willis was hard to work with the last year, that's a different matter, but not one of elder abuse.
I don't find that hard at all, TBH.
I'm not sure how that works, but I'd 100% watch a movie in which Bruce Willis didn't say a single word.
But yeah, there's no evidence whatsoever that he's been taken advantage at all. Why would you say that?
For those, like myself, who weren't aware of what aphasia is.
That is so sad. Bruce is one of my favorite actors. Contained actors, like him and Eastwood, are not celebrated enough.
Crying and shouting gives you awards, but people like him, who are able to convey so much emotion without doing much, are often overlooked. From Die Hard to Sixth Sense, the guy is an underestimated genius.
I recently rewatched Death Becomes Her, and it still holds up very well today. One of my favorite unappreciated Bruce Willis roles.
Death Becomes Her is great! But mine is Hudson Hawk. It's insanely campy, but highly entertaining. E.g.
🎵 Swinging on a Star 🎵 & 🎵 Side by Side 🎵
This is truly sad. It's easy to look at the last decade of his work and make jokes, but Bruce Willis is a truly iconic actor. He's been in some of the biggest, most popular, and most influential movies of all time. He's left a pretty big mark on both the film industry and pop culture as a whole.