From 1985 to 1989 Bruce Willis and Cybill Shephard starred in romantic comedy Moonlighting, and 34 years after its final Shephard is opening up about her attraction to co-star Willis.

Paying tribute to Bruce Willis, who earlier this year was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, Cybill also spoke about his star appeal and her memories of working with the ‘funny and brilliant’ Hollywood star.

Reflecting on how they fought for Bruce to be on the show, series creator Glenn Gordon Caron recalled how he kept on bringing Willis to the ABC offices until they gave in:

Caron: I brought Bruce in 11 times and he was the only one I brought in [for the role]. The problem with Bruce is that he didn’t look like an ABC leading man to [network execs], but I wasn’t interested in doing a show with an ABC leading man. Thank goodness there was a woman there named Ann Daniel, one of the very few women [network] executives at the time — the rest of the room were men. And Ann, in her own way, sort of set them straight. She said, “I don’t know if Bruce Willis is a leading man or an ABC leading man but he sure looks like fun to me.” It froze the room and they reconsidered and we were able to get Bruce the part, which meant the world to him and to me.