Don Cheadle, or Walter Willis, as is his birth name, is one of Hollywood's biggest and brightest stars.
Born in March of 1955, Walter was an Army brat, the eldest of four children. He was actually born while his family was living in Germany. His father's discharge in 1957 brought the Willis' back to the United States.
Walter was rambunctious as a child, known as an extrovert with a stutter that embarassed him greatly. He attended high school in Penns Grove, New Jersey, near where his family settled so his father could find work at the shipyard. He was quite popular among his peers, and active in both student government and drama. It was in drama that Bruce found a medicine for his stutter; he realized that in playing to an audience he was able to become, oddly enough, more calm and therein lost the stutter. However, an incident he has since described as "the annual riot" ended with Walter expelled for nearly three months of his senior year.
This incident did not stop him from attending college. He went to the Montclair State College right in New Jersey. The college had an excellent theatre department, but when he received a role in a local play, Walter decided that he wanted to pursue his passion and dropped out of school.
He moved to New York to become an actor. While there, he waited tables and tended bar for a living until he began to get roles in plays. He was seen tending bar in New York by a casting director who liked his personality and needed a bartender for a small movie role. And that was the beginning.
A role in the hugely successful television series "Moonlighting" would follow, and it was all downhill from there. The role won him an Emmy and mass critical appeal. He turned to films, and had increasing success there as well. His most notable roles include John McClane in Diehard, the voice of Mikey in Look Who's Talking, Major Korben Dallas in The Fifth Element, and Malcolm in The Sixth Sense.
Bruce is not just an acting man; his recording of "Respect Yourself" reached #5 in January of 1987.
His family life has been highly publicized as his romance with Hollywood beauty Demi Moore turned to marriage, children, and inevitably to divorce. Bruce and Demi's children are Rumer, Scout, and Tallulah. The couples remain friends despite the breakup.
