The hometown kid who became John McClane now has his name on a street in the town he was raised
CARNEYS POINT, N.J. — Before the Emmy and before Die Hard, Bruce Willis played harmonica in a fourth-grade band. On Saturday afternoon, a couple hundred neighbors, former classmates and fans gathered on South DuPont Road to welcome his name home.
The Carneys Point Township Committee unveiled a commemorative “Bruce Willis Way” street sign on South DuPont Road. The Salem County Sheriff’s honor guard took part in the ceremony, which opened with the Pledge of Allegiance and an invocation by Township Committeewoman Rev. Dr. Almeida Johnson. After unveiling the bright Penns Grove red street sign the crowd erupting into applause. It is about time, was all that was on the minds of the couple hundred people there. You would have thought after Moonlighting and especially Die Hard, this would have been done.
Gov. Mikie Sherrill sent a letter, read aloud, calling the sign a tribute to Willis’ career and his “enduring connection to the Garden State.”
“He never lost his South Jersey flavor,” State Sen. John Burzichelli said, describing Willis as friendly and approachable. Burzichelli said Willis’s work on films shot in the Philadelphia region, including The Sixth Sense, brought jobs to the Delaware Valley.
Assemblyman Dave Bailey, whose family roots are on nearby Penn Street, recalled the day Willis and then-wife Demi Moore walked into a thrift store at the Cowtown farmers market and “threw everybody into a tizzy.” He said the sign matters most for local kids: seeing a South Jersey name on a street shows them a small-town start does not limit what they can become.
Carneys Point Mayor Pat Bomba said Willis’ childhood home on Monroe Street was donated to the Salem County Habitat for Humanity. Two homes have since been built on the property, and two families now live there. He noted that Willis always stopped at Roman Pantry when he visited, and that he claimed it had the best cheesesteaks.
Bomba closed by saying his thoughts and prayers are with Willis and his family as he deals with his health.
Penns Grove Mayor La’Daena Londo could not attend, but a statement from her was read. She said she grew up in San Diego and after moving to Penns Grove/Carneys Point heard her history teacher talk about Willis in the summer of 1990, and that it made a movie star feel closer to home and inspired her to dream big.
Penns Grove High School Principal Lori O’Brien said Willis was a TV crew member, a drama club member, student council president and homecoming king, and was nominated most school spirit male senior in 1973.
The idea started with Larry “Peanut” Wright, a 1977 Penns Grove High School graduate and filmmaker who now lives in Greensboro, North Carolina. Organizers said he began the effort more than a year ago and worked with township officials to bring it before the Township Committee. Wright could not attend but sent congratulations to Willis and his family.
A message from the family
Willis was not at the ceremony due to his medical conditions and living across the country. His mother, Marlene Willis, wrote a letter read by Penns Grove High School drama club student Ebony Dorn. She wrote that she came to the area with her oldest son, Bruce, and raised three more children there: Florence, Robert and David. Mrs. Willis said the family was honored, that she lived too far away to attend, and that she would love to see Bruce Willis Way if she returns to Carneys Point. She asked for a photo.
His sister, Florence Willis, sent a statement that family friend Stanley Field read aloud. She wrote that some of her last true conversations with Bruce were with old neighbors and friends, and that the two of them took “memory walks” around Penns Grove and Carneys Point. Their grandfather, uncles and cousins lived, worked and played in the area, she wrote.
She described South DuPont Road as “a place of many adventures,” with sledding in winter, leaf forts in fall and bike riding all year, plus “a misadventure or two.”
“I know Bruce would have been very honored to have this particular spot named the Bruce Willis Way,” she wrote, “and I hope someday he will get to see it.”
Field, a family friend, credited Florence as an integral part of the effort and said he wouldn’t have been at the podium without her. He recalled that when he was a high school sophomore, the principal announced over the loudspeaker that everyone had to watch Moonlighting, and that most students did not know what it was.
“From there, it just was a storm,” he said. Every teacher had a story, and the success of a hometown kid “gave everybody hope,” he said.
Field said Willis was “more than just a TV movie star action hero. He was a husband, a father, a brother, a cousin, a friend.”
Memories from classmates and readers
Bishop Freddie Washington, a member of the Class of 1973, remembered a fourth-grade group called the Lafayette Seven. Washington played piano and Willis played harmonica, and the group performed concerts at local schools. He said Willis once told an interviewer that Washington was the more talented one.
“We celebrate Bruce, who is still alive. And we’re praying for him,” Washington said. “As long as there is life, there is still opportunity.”
In the days before the ceremony, readers also sent The News of Salem County their own Bruce Willis stories.
Donna Silvestri Krakow, a 1972 Penns Grove High School graduate, first met Bruce at Carlton school in Carneys Point, where she was a sixth grader and he was in fifth. “Bruce was friends with everyone,” she wrote. When he ran for eighth-grade class president, she said, he broke with custom by choosing her, a girl, as his campaign manager. She believes it won him the girls’ votes along with the boys’, and he won in a landslide. “This was Bruce, always outside the box,” she wrote.
Sherri Riddle of Bridgeton remembers running into him in August 1996 at Planet Hollywood in Atlantic City, where she and her husband were having dinner. A media entourage followed Bruce up to the second floor and set up an interview next to their table, she said. She snapped a photo, and he smiled for a second one. She noted that his hair was dyed blond for filming The Fifth Element.
Diana Maiocco, media director of the fan site Moonlighting21.com, wrote in a 2002 fanzine article about meeting Bruce on May 8, 1985, at an ABC reception at the New York Hilton, where the network was announcing its 1985-86 prime-time schedule. Moonlighting had only recently aired its first episodes, and she waited near the escalator for hours to catch him. She noticed his light green eyes, shook his hand and told him she thought he was very talented, and a coworker took their photo. After she mailed him a copy, she wrote, she received a signed black-and-white headshot a few months later.
From Carneys Point to the world
Willis was born in 1955 in Idar-Oberstein, West Germany, and moved with his family to Carneys Point as a young child. At Penns Grove High School he got involved in drama and served as student council president. He went on to television fame as David Addison on Moonlighting, which earned him a 1987 Emmy, and to film stardom as John McClane in the Die Hard series. He was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2011.
Organizers recognized Marianne DeMarco, owner of Roman Pantry, saying Willis stopped in whenever he was in town and called its cheesesteaks the best. A small reception followed at the Pantry. Asked to shout out their favorite Willis movie, the crowd answered with Die Hard.
Before the unveiling, organizers thanked the honor guard, the Penns Grove-Carneys Point school district, the historical society and the Carneys Point Police Department. The sign stands near the corner of South DuPont Road and Route 48.
Did you go to school with Bruce Willis, grow up near him, or have a story about him? Send it to zach@thenewsofsalemcounty.com. We may include your memories in our coverage.
