Never Forget Who Helped You - of Bruce Willis as Told by Coach Walpole

Okay, this is story about people that don't ever forget what got them there. And it's about a success story that started on a small scale many years ago.

I used to watch baseball games that my son played in, next to a man who said to me one night, he says, “Listen. What are you going to be doing next week?” 

And I said, “I don't know.” 

He says, “Are you near Madison Square Garden at all?” 

And I go. “Not right now. It's just but I go down there once in a while.” 

“So, that's great,” he goes. “Why don't you come down and the next couple of weeks and come to my bar.”

 And I said, “You have a bar?” 

He says, “You have myself and another retired policeman open the bar number years ago and it's right down from the Garden. Why don't you come down. I want you to meet somebody.” 

So, I go, “Really?” 

He goes, “Yeah, I'd really like you to meet this guy.” 

I say, “Okay, I'll think about it.” 

He says, I'm going to call you the morning that he's down there. He comes in for various galas that go on in New York City. He's pretty famous.”

So, I said, “Okay.” 

So, anyway, I believe it was a Wednesday morning, he calls me up and says. “Can you come down tonight?” 

And I go. “No John, I really can't come down tonight. I have an award ceremony out at my school. I have to give awards to my baseball players. I can't get there.”

So, he said, “All what a shame.” He says, “I'd love you to come down.” And he says, “But he might be in one more time this year.” 

So, I said, “Okay.” I said, “What is the story on this guy?”

He goes, “Okay, when he was about 18 years old this guy,” he said, “he came into our bar and said, ‘Would you be able to give me a job as a bartender?’” So, my bartender at the time said, “I don't think so, kid.”

He goes, “We have enough,” he says, “but once in a while we get guys that call in sick.” He says, “We might be able to use the stand-in,” and he says, “but you look a little bit young for this.”

So, the kid said, “No,” he says. “I’ve been a bartender for my father. I was underage, but nobody really cared out where I live in Jersey.”

And he goes, “So I’d really like to give it a try.”

So, the bartender calls my friend John and says, “Listen, we got a kid here.” He tells him the whole story.

So, John says, “All right. Bring him in tonight. Let him work for a while and tell me if he’s any good.”

So, the kid comes in and works, and the bartender calls John and says, “The kid was really good.”

So, John says, “All right, put him on the list.”

Well, anyway, a couple of times in the next month, the kid comes in to bartend. And the guy who had sent him in the beginning asks, “Why do you need this job so badly?”

The kid says, “Because I’m trying to get a job on Broadway.”

And he says, “As an extra? Anything?”

He replies, “Yeah. I’m living with three guys in Manhattan, right around 35th Street, and we don’t have enough money for rent unless all of us are doing something. Right now, two of us are doing something and two of us aren’t, so I could use the money.”

So, the guy says, “Okay.”

Anyway, after working there for a year, he comes in and says, “I think I might have something on Broadway. I think I might have something that’s going to allow me to work for a while.”

So, the guy says, “Okay.”

He says, “I don’t know where this is going to end up, but I’ve got to stop working here for a couple of weeks.”

The guy says, “Fine. Just come back when you’re done.”

So, anyway, he comes back about two weeks later and says, “That didn’t pan out exactly, but I might have something else in the offering.”

So, he works at the bar for another two years. After those two years, he comes and tells the bartender and John, “I might have something out in Hollywood. They want to use me as an extra on some military goings-on. I think it’s Second World War—I’m not really sure—but it’s something. It’s an opening for me.”

So, he goes out there, becomes very successful, and that’s really where I know him from—and where you would know him from.

So, I said, “Okay, so what is he doing?”

He goes, “All right. When he comes in, he calls me up, and I call my bartender and say, ‘He’s coming in tonight.’”

So, he goes, “Okay.”

So, at 11:00 that night, this guy comes into the bar, opens the door, looks in at the people who are there, and says:

“Okay, you won’t know who I am. I’m telling you right now — there’s a phone booth in here, but you can’t use it. You can’t leave and come back again. You can’t do anything that would tell anybody that I’m here right now. But I’m telling you — if you stay, you can eat from 11:00 to 4:00 in the morning, and you can drink from 11:00 to 4:00 in the morning. And that’s it. Any of you who want to leave, leave now. Those of you who want to stay, you’re welcome to stay.”

So, I said, “Wow, okay. What’s the guy’s name?”

And he goes, “Bruce Willis.”

I go, “Bruce Willis?”

He goes, “Yeah.”

And a woman once said to him, “Why do you do this, Mr. Willis?”

And he said, “Because if it wasn’t for John, you wouldn’t even know who I am. He kept me afloat all the years I was trying to make it in the business — even when I lost a couple of my first jobs. He’s really the guy responsible for me sticking it out. Without him? Nothing.”

And John told me that one night, Bruce came in with his wife, Demi Moore. They walked into the bar, he opens the door and says:

“All right, you know who I am.”

And Demi Moore is next to him. She says, “You probably know who I am too,” and then puts her hands up in a gun position and says, “And he’s right too — nobody’s leaving here tonight.”

And I thought that was really pretty cool of both of them — wonderful people. And Bruce is really suffering right now. But never, never think that he wasn’t a terrific guy — a guy who never forgot his roots.