Today is Bruce Willis’s birthday!

Everyone knows that Bruce Willis is the film star who, late in his career, turned out to be an unexpectedly good character actor.  Quentin Tarantino once said that Willis as one of the only modern stars who seemed as if he could easily step into an old gangster movie or film noir and not seem like he was out of place.  Tarantino was right.

What is often forgotten is that, early on his career, Willis also pursued musical stardom.  He released two albums of R&B covers, the best known of which was the first, The Return of Bruno.  Released by Motown, The Return of Bruno was critically dismissed as being a vanity project but Bruce got the last laugh when the album exceeded expectations commercially and Willis went on to appear in movies like Pulp Fiction and 12 Monkeys.  Meanwhile, his critics had to settle for appearing in Rolling Stone.

When the album was released in 1987, HBO aired a concert film of Willis performing.  The video above is taking from that concert film and it features Bruce singing Under The Boardwalk with The Temptations.  Willis’s cover of Under The Boardwalk did not chart in the U.S. but it was hugely popular in the UK, where it reached the second spot on the charts.

Enjoy!