“Die Hard”, today remembered as an iconic action picture, had difficulty getting itself a leading man:
The picture was based on the novel “Nothing Lasts Forever” a sequel to a cop procedural titled “The Detective” that had been adapted into a hit film with Frank Sinatra in 1968. Die Hard had the same plot under-pinnings as “Forever” — a police detective battling the bad guys in an office tower, although details were different. The officer in the script was younger, not divorced and way more smart-ass.
Sinatra, though no longer young, was offered the script. Likewise Harrison Ford, Sylvester Stallone, Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood, Al Pacino, Richard Gere, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Burt Reynolds. All of them turned it down.
One of the few actors who was interested or didn’t have scheduling conflicts was TV star Bruce Willis, whose big-screen career to that point consisted of a pair of underwhelming comedies directed by Blake Edwards, one of which made some money (“Blind Date”) and one (“Sunset”) that bombed. Willis recalled:
Things were happening so fast I didn’t have time to sit down and go, “Here’s what I want to have happen this year, or next year, or in five years.” I was never that guy anyway. I was never the guy that said, “OK, in five years, I need to be HERE.” … All I knew was I got to act every day on TV.
The show [Moonlighting] had become popular by 1988, I think I’d already read the script for Die Hard once, but had to pass because of the show. As it turns out, a miracle happened — Cybill Shepherd got pregnant and they shut down the show for 11 weeks — just the right amount of time for me to run around over at Nakatomi Tower.
Bruce Willis was offered the part of Officer John McClane along with a fee of five million dollars. He happily accepted, performed many of his own stunts, and cracked wise throughout. The result became a major hit for Twentieth Century Fox, one that hoisted Mr. Willis to big screen stardom.