Willis was born in Idar-Oberstein. His father, David Willis,
was an American soldier. His mother, Marlene K. Willis was German, born in
Kassel. Willis is the oldest of four children: he has a sister, Florence, and a
brother, David. His brother Robert died of pancreatic cancer in 2001, aged 42. After
being discharged from the military in 1957, Willis' father took his family back
to Carneys
Point Township, New Jersey.Willis has described himself as having
come from a "long line of blue collar people". His mother worked in a
bank and his father was a welder, master mechanic, and factory worker. Willis
attended Penns Grove High School in his hometown, where he encountered issues
with a stutter.He was nicknamed "Buck-Buck" by his schoolmates. Finding
it easy to express himself on stage and losing his stutter in the process,
Willis began performing on stage; his high school activities were marked by
such things as the drama club and being student council president. After high
school, Willis took a job as a security guard at the Salem Nuclear Power Plant and
transported work crews at the DuPont Chambers Works factory in Deepwater, New
Jersey. After working as a private investigator (a role he would play in the
television series Moonlighting and the 1991 film The Last Boy Scout), Willis
turned to acting. He enrolled in the Drama Program at Montclair State
University, where he was cast in the class production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
Willis left school in his junior year and moved to New York City, where in the
early 1980s he supported himself as a bartender at the West 19th Street art bar
Kamikaze. After multiple auditions, Willis made his theater debut in the
Off-Broadway production of Heaven and Earth. He gained more experience and
exposure in Fool for Love, and in a Levi's commercial. Willis also played a
lead role in the Off-Broadway production of writer-director Dennis Watlington's
Bullpen for four years
