I was stunned but kind of not stunned when I heard the news yesterday that Val Kilmer has died at the kind of ripe young age of 65. I think all of us knew that the dude was in seriously bad health and well, we all kind of saw this coming. When a celebrity falls on bad health the whole world knows about it and in Kilmer's case it was something that he and his PR team did a good job of keeping it out of the public eye.
Val has a lot of complications with throat cancer and it turns out that he had two tracheotomies because his throat or windpipe or something was in such bad shape that he couldn't breathe without it.
The official report is that he died of pneumonia peacefully and if true, I am glad about the peacefully part of this.
I want to look at the best memories I have of Val in his various roles.
Heat
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I'm not as "gaga" about the movie "Heat" as other people are. In my opinion the film is too long but the character I remember the most is Val's portrayal as the quiet, dependable, and very effective "Chris." He looked cool, he seemed intimidating as fuck, and he was in my mind, the best character in the entire film. That scene where he is in the middle of the road holding off an entire police force? Absolutely epic.
The Doors
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The Doors were "too popular" when i was in high school to the point where I think a lot of the people that were super-fans were actually pretending to be as such because it was really cool to be a Doors fan at that point in time while ignoring the fact that during those years we were witnessing a massive turn in musical tastes as the Seattle grunge scene took over the airwaves. My friends who were always pumping The Doors in the parking lots and smoking weed seemed like fakers to me, too concerned about being "cool" to bother listening to the good music of the times.
Anyway, that is something that just irked me so when this film came out I didn't even bother watching it because I was so over the worship of Jim Morrison. Years later I would end up watching this movie and was just blown away by Val Kilmer's portrayal of Jim and also about how he was able to transform himself into looking exactly like the guy.
This had to have been a very difficult role to play but Val absolutely nailed it and even raised up the level of performance of everyone around him. This was particularly true with Meg Ryan, who I never really respected as a serious actress, but I think that Val's excellence raised the bar of those around him in almost anything he was a star in at that point in his life. This is an excellent and memorable film and I can't imagine anyone else playing the role other than Kilmer.
Tombstone
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Without question my favorite role that Val ever played was the role of Doc Holliday, where he totally stole the show over everyone else in the film despite the fact that this was quite the cast to be working alongside with. Doc provided comedic relief in an intimidating sort of way that is just so unique. Even when he was on the verge of death with tuberculosis, he was still a force to be reckoned with.
It is a bit sadly ironic that my favorite role that he ever played involved the character slowly dying from another lung-based illness, tuberculosis.
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Once again we find ourselves in a position of "could anyone else have been slotted into this role and done it just as well?" I'm not just honoring the recently deceased when I say that I don't think so. When you are in a film with Kurt Russell, Sam Elliott, Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton and Charlton Heston and somehow you emerge as the person that everyone remembers the most...well you did a damn fine job as your character.
Val had been in bad health for a long time and this was evident when he briefly appeared in "Top Gun: Maverick." Apparently Val didn't want to reprise his role but he was contractually obligated to do so. I was surprised to find that out. Because he has a really good friendship with Tom Cruise though, they limited his involvement to just a few scenes and as you may recall, he doesn't speak a great deal in that movie because his real-life struggles with throat cancer made it difficult for him to do so.
While Kilmer has some legendary roles, his later work wasn't all that spectacular and if you look at this list I would be surprised if you remember or even heard of most of the films that were released after the year 2000 or so. I won't disgrace him by posting photos but he got really fat and was almost unrecognizable when he was on screen.
Despite his ill health, he continued acting until as late as 2023 although it was in very limited roles.
I never saw most of the films on his filmography outside of the work in the 90's and I think I will leave it that way. I recall going to look at Heath Ledger's body of work after his passing and it wasn't a good idea and kind of tainted the memory. But the above roles are something that will stick with me and a lot of other people who were alive when the movies were released.
It was a shame that he had to go, but death gets all of us at one point or another.