A few words about Val Kilmer
The multi-faceted actor died at the age of 65 from pneumonia.
Val Kilmer was cancer’s and Johnny Ringo’s huckleberry.
In one of the most memorable lines in cinematic history, the actor personified every cool thing about being a gunslinger. Embodying the giant ego and persona of Doc Holliday, Kilmer etched a corner of cinema’s golden corner for himself with the performance of a lifetime in Tombstone, a movie that is as rich as it is rewatchable.
A role so good, the Oscars couldn’t even find time to reward it. If there’s a date in time that I stopped caring about the Academy Awards, it’s when they stopped noticing performances like Kilmer’s as the enigmatic and charismatic Doc. He was simply too quick for voters, I guess.
In real life, Kilmer battled a troubling childhood and the biggest threat of them all in cancer. In 2016, he went up against throat cancer one-on-one, and lived to talk about it in a thought-provoking documentary eloquently named, Val. A celebration of his work as much as it was about his current predicament, the documentary highlighted an actor who was a step apart from the rest.
In essence, Kilmer didn’t do something unless he did it at an A-level. Michael Mann, the director of Heat, told marine recruits how quick and technically proficient Kilmer became at unloading and loading his assault rifle during that famous bank heist sequence. There was no faking it when he was running for cover down that street in Los Angeles. When he played Jim Morrison, he did all of his own singing. He crawled so deep into the singer’s skin for a couple hours that you forgot he was the pilot with a crackerjack smile in Top Gun and the guy who turned a house into a popcorn-stuffed microwave in Weird Science.
Whatever he attempted to do, Kilmer nailed it and aimed to perfect it. In an underrated movie and performance, he was the famous porn star John Holmes caught at the wrong place at the wrong time in Wonderland. He was the private investigator forced to work with Robert Downey Jr.’s hapless thief in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
Kilmer rattled off the difficult yet layered dialogue of David Mamet in Spartan, another underrated thriller. He made the ordinary seem extra skillful and took it to that underrated spot. With movie star looks and character actor depth, he was the total package on screen. He was a good Batman in an average Joel Schumacher film, but a better Bruce Wayne than any actor who played the role.
“For me, the sun rises and sets with her.”
Heat and Tombstone are my Kilmer highlights, though. For all the applause his gunplay (rightfully) gets to this deal, it was the heartbreaking edge that he gave Chris in Mann’s film that got to you. The scene near the end where Ashley Judd’s spouse makes the hand gesture on the balcony, signifying that she had to cut ties with the thief even though she loved the shit out of him, still cuts deep. The look on Kilmer’s face cut right through the screen. You could feel it. It’s the juice off his performance that laid the groundwork for the upcoming Heat 2. Without Kilmer’s conviction, Mann never pens that novel.
We could never cut ties with Kilmer, because he was too good. It was a mysterious blend of greatness that enthralls and haunts at the same time. He played the game for blood, just like Doc.
In the end, it wasn’t cancer that got him. He shot that in the head out in the hills next to a mountain. It was pneumonia, the same thing that took Bernie Mac too soon. 65 isn’t a half-built runway of a life, but it’s far from enough. As we do with most things in life, we wanted more.
Thankfully, Kilmer left a deep roster of hits, golden cinema adventures, and versatile two-hour pieces of entertainment that should keep one busy for days. If an actor comes to Hollywood in pursuit of “it,” Kilmer found it easily. He didn’t have to convince and walk away; he was “it.”
Rest in peace, prince.