In Memoriam
Such a brilliant actor, so underappreciated. He will be missed, and not just because of how attractive he was.
He’s not the first person I’ve had a crush on to have died. There have been several over the years. Some I haven’t even gotten around to writing about, not to mention those who died before I developed interest. Val Kilmer hits me differently, in part because of things in the article I wrote about him for The Solute four and a half years ago. At the time, I had moved him up the schedule because of his failing health, so I’m not really surprised that he has died. But I’m feeling a little lost, in a way that’s hard to put fully into words.
It is partly that he represents such a specific moment in my life. I’d already been feeling a bit caught up in it of late, because of the drama of my hometown. It’s hard not to remember Val Kilmer in that context. The summer of 1995. Batman Forever on not just the big screen but the huge screen, the one that used to be a drive-in screen and was then just the biggest screen at the Pacific Hastings. Tombstone on VHS, taped off cable, and Top Secret! on Comedy Central. The last summer of my childhood, even though I was legally an adult. It is that time that I grieve as much as Kilmer himself.
But oh, he was an amazing actor. Such a brilliant actor. It’s so hard to remember that he started on the big screen in Top Secret! It feels like the work of a much more accomplished actor, and his having gone to Julliard is not enough to explain that. And then Real Genius, which I just got someone to watch (the video will be coming up in a Depth of Field when I’m done editing). And if not everything he did was exactly an immortal classic of cinema, it was never the fault of Kilmer, and goodness knows there are more than a few greats in his career.
I will fight for him as Batman—honestly I think he’s the best Bruce Wayne of the franchise. Possibly the only one who really handled the transition between the two with any flair. Of course there is Doc Holliday, the stupendous role that drew me in. But there is Moses and there is Gay Perry. Stevie Pruit and Chris Shiherlis. And, yes, Madmartigan and Jim Morrison and, I suppose, Ice, and if it saddens me that the sequel was his last role, a movie I will probably never see, well, we’ll always have Nick Rivers.
I am also angry at him. Kilmer was a lifelong Christian Scientist, and he while he did do chemotherapy even though it was against his religion, it seems certain to me that he could have lived longer if he’d taken better care of his health. We could have had years more of him. He had something of a reputation as being a difficult person to work with, though Mira Sorvino disputes that, but the performances were good enough that he was in over a hundred things in his too-short life. I loved him and I am angry at him and I admire him, and I will miss him dreadfully.
About the writer
Gillian Nelson
Gillian Nelson is a forty-something bipolar woman living in the Pacific Northwest after growing up in Los Angeles County. She and her boyfriend have one son and one daughter, and she gave a child up for adoption. She fills her days by chasing around her kids, watching a lot of movies, and reading. She particularly enjoys pre-Code films, blaxploitation, and live-action Disney movies of the '60s and '70s. She has a Patreon account.
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I’ve seen a dozen of those hundred credits, but all of them were better for having him.
Doc Holiday is an all-timer of a role, and he played it as such. Charlene’s warning in Heat works because Kilmer makes sure you see the bottom drop out of Chris’ world, and keeps that visible to the audience while he covers up. Batman Forever doesn’t really sing for me these days, but my problems are mostly with the script. He vanishes in Felon; if you put a gun to my head when he first shows up and told me to name the actor, I would have lost. And who else would you get to channel the King for Tony Scott?
It’s wild to me that a guy can play Batman and Jim Morrison and not even have either one be his most iconic role, thanks to his Doc Holliday.
Also fantastic as the villain in MacGruber, who is every bit the evil action-movie supervillain as he is just fed up with MacGruber’s incompetence. “Oh, my God! It’s me. I’m writing it. I’m the one that’s framing you. Me.”
I’ve also heard from a very reliable source / friend of the website that Real Genius is a very accurate portrayal of its specific culture– the California science and technology colleges in the early 80s.
Gay Perry too! Which I think is somehow my favorite role of his.
Though you will understand my desperate temptation to use one of those old images from The Saint.
There’s still time to put one in the article!
I really wanted to highlight Dieter Von Cunth as the role wasn’t mentioned in the initial obit, and I still think MacGruber is one of the funniest movies of the 21st century.
But, yeah, Gay Perry is great, too, as are many of the other roles mentioned. I mostly didn’t have much to expand on there– though I agree with Gillian that Kilmer’s Nick Rivers is particularly incredible considering it’s his first film role. But, yeah, the fact that we can all name a good seven or eight terrific and enduring Kilmer performances, at least, really speaks to what a great performer he was.
And you should have highlighted him! He really was versatile, in a way that wasn’t true of a lot of Hot Young Things of his era.
Great obit, and I think a lot of people are feeling similarly. He’s not an actor like I dunno Morgan Freeman or John Candy, where their warmth is a big part of why they’re beloved — he was funny and open and fearless, and that gave us so much and that’s why his loss hurts.