2202112 English Two                                                              Supplementary Reading U11

Turning Point

Separated from Bruce Willis for 14 months, Demi Moore savors life in the slow lane, with her kids and a new companion

(From People Magazine)

(1) September 6, 1999 -- Demi Moore seemed childlike standing in the gas station minimart near her home in Hailey, Idaho (pop. 4,506), in June, her hair in pigtails, a tie-dyed T-shirt under her overalls and three pieces of beef jerky in her hand. When the man at her side holding a bottle of Snapple—martial arts instructor Oliver Whitcomb—opened his wallet to pay for their snacks, he discovered he had only a $100 bill. Moore quickly pulled "a huge wad of cash" out of her pocket, recalls cashier Pat Flanagan, and said, "No, no, I’ll pay." But Whitcomb refused her offer. "I broke the hundred, and they drove off," says Flanagan, "into the sunset, so to speak." The cashier confesses he had seen the resident superstar at a local dance club a few months earlier and handed her his phone number on a napkin. He hadn’t heard from her—and doesn’t expect to now. "They seemed so cute together," he says of Moore and Whitcomb. "Like a couple."

(2) Bad break for Flanagan—and bad news for those who hoped that Moore and estranged husband Bruce Willis had reconsidered things after announcing the end of their 10-year marriage some 14 months ago. A romantic notion but not implausible, since more than a year after their separation the two have made no move toward divorcing. They still have a joint interest in more than $20 million worth of real estate—including their 18,000-acre Flying Heart Ranch in Hailey and a 14-room apartment on Manhattan’s Central Park West—and, by all accounts, a shared devotion to their three daughters, Rumer, 11, Scout, 8, and Tallulah, 5. But except for a few group outings over the year—a school soccer team picnic here, a Spice Girls concert there—family time is taken in shifts these days. Double shifts for Moore, say friends.

(4) Which doesn’t mean they’ve been moping around solo. Early last month, Willis, whose new thriller The Sixth Sense has been No. 1 at the box office since opening on Aug. 6, was testing out his tango skills with Spanish model Marķa Bravo at La Virginia nightclub in Marbella, Spain. "They were," says an observer, "very close all night." And not for the first time. Since Willis met the Malaga-born Bravo, 31, at the opening of Planet Hollywood in Madrid last November, the $20 million-per-picture star has been seen with her in restaurants, clubs and boutiques throughout Spain (in Marbella he bought her a $750 Gucci bikini). Together at a party for the Tiger Jam II benefit at the Rio Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas in August, says an observer, "they were happy, smiling." Small surprise that when Willis happened on a clerk back at the minimart in Hailey reading a tabloid a few months ago, he flashed his infamous grin and asked: "Anything good about me in there?"

(5) Not that week. But his work-hard-play-hard lifestyle has earned Willis headlines in Europe. In November he told France’s Paris Match magazine that "Demi is marvelous. Our kids too. [But] I can’t live with them. But, you understand, it’s the end." Moore was not pleased. "Demi’s disappointed in Bruce. His words and actions are not in the best interests of their children," says her personal attorney William Beslow. "She feels betrayed." Still, there is no faulting Willis’s behavior when he’s in Hailey, where the only lovelies on his arm there are his daughters: leaving ceramics class or going to the Video Depot to rent an action flick (PG only, Willis insists). According to a friend of the couple’s, "when Demi was so consumed making movies"—especially 1996’s Striptease and 1997’s G.I. Jane—"the girls were far closer to Bruce. He would be the one tucking the girls in and putting them to sleep."