Before a popcorny era of optimism invaded theaters with the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, an aspiring actor from South Jersey known as "Bruno" tended bar on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The harmonica-playing server would soon grace the small screen in the ABC series Moonlighting—then, unexpectedly, cause explosions in multiplexes everywhere as his signature pain in the ass John McClane.
Bruce Willis’s turn in Die Hard would forever designate his likeness as the blue-collar antihero with the worst luck, always 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 would culminate with a seminal blockbuster franchise and the actor’s legendary career.