Over a nearly four-decade career, Kilmer, 61, has enthralled audiences with his roles in at least 60 films as the swashbuckling mercenary, Madmartigan in Willow (1988), a master of disguise and high-tech thief in The Saint (1997), superhero star in Batman Forever (1995), the incredible transformation into Jim Morrison for The Doors (1991), legendary gunslinger Doc Holliday in Tombstone (1993) and more.<\/p>\n
And then there is the one-man show, Mark Twain, starring Kilmer on stage and the screen, Cinema Twain (2019). Kilmer’s remarkable metamorphous into his childhood author mentor was years in the making and, no question about it, riveting.<\/p>\n
You may wonder, with all of these changing faces and personalities, who is the real Val Kilmer?<\/p>\n
His answer might be “I’m Your Huckleberry,” a line from Doc Holiday and now the title of his memoir,\u00a0VAL KILMER I’m Your Huckleberry<\/em>. <\/a>A Memoir.\u00a0<\/em>A self-described life like a pinball machine, Kilmer has been drawn to the buzz, as he puts it, of love his entire life \u2026 love of people, the universe, animals, places \u2026<\/p>\n To get to know Kilmer and his “inner puckishness” that has “defined” his life and, “helped {him} stay alive,” I’m Your Huckleberry” is a welcoming open window into his life. He opens up about his career, loves, family, Christian Science religion, as well as how he has dealt and is dealing with throat cancer and recovery.<\/p>\n Val Kilmer (2019). Photo: Deposit Photos<\/p><\/div>\n To get it upfront and off the table, as he does in his memoir, Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2015 and has endured two tracheotomies. He is cancer-free yet, as he describes, “I sound like Marlon Brando after a couple of bottles of tequila. It isn’t a frog in my throat. More like a buffalo.”<\/p>\n After what many might view as a charmed life, Kilmer is meeting this next challenge head-on. “I am a storyteller who has been deprived of his primary tool. So I’ve focused on listening and am so grateful for the habits of prayer and the ability to trust in is healing that I’ve developed since childhood. Stay calm and carry on \u2026 Clearly, I’m vain, but I’m workin’ on it, baby I’m workin’ on it. In fact, I’ve never met anyone who has worked so hard on their vanity. LOL.”<\/p>\n After undergoing chemotherapy and radiation, he is cancer-free. “I’m doing great; I feel a lot better than I sound,” Kilmer said in an interview on “Good Morning America.”<\/p>\n While cancer and recovery may have sidelined many, Kilmer continues to take the world by storm by writing a memoir, Val Kilmer, I’m Your Huckleberry<\/em>, being the focus of the documentary of his life (so far), Val, and an upcoming performance in Top Gun: Maverick.<\/p>\n VAL documentary. Photo Courtesy of Amazon Studios<\/p><\/div>\n Just introduced is Val, a documentary film directed and produced by Leo Scott and Ting Poo following Kilmer’s life and career through video clips he made himself or collected since he was a child. The film had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, has appeared in theatres, and is now digital streaming on Amazon Prime Video.<\/p>\n Jack Kilmer, Val Kilmer’s son, narrates VAL \u00a9 2020 DISTRIBUTION, LLC. All Rights Reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n You will be surprised from the opening that Kilmer appears to be the narrator. No, instead, it is his beloved son, Jack, who sounds remarkably like him, who shares these words: “I was recently diagnosed with throat cancer. I’m still recovering. It is difficult to talk and be understood. And I want to tell my story more than ever.”<\/p>\n If you’ve ever wondered what to do with all of your home movies and lifetime video clips, Kilmer has an answer: make a documentary memoir. Val does just this and follows much of his book with the added element of bringing his words to life.<\/p>\n The helter-skelter feel of the documentary can be made even more enjoyable and thought-provoking by first reading his book.<\/p>\n Book cover: VAL KILMER I’m Your Huckleberry. A Memoir<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n Memoirs like Kilmer’s offer opportunities for readers to immerse themselves vicariously into another’s life. To find a personal connection fuels an urge to read on.<\/p>\n For me, Kilmer’s early days conjured up familiar scenes. He was born in Los Angeles (as I was), he was a son of a real estate developer (I am a granddaughter of a California real estate developer), and played at Playa del Rey Beach (a 7-minute drive from my house).<\/p>\n Chatsworth. Kilmer grew up in Chatsworth. He attended Chatsworth High, whose drama department was second only to Beverly Hills High. He lived next door to Roy Roger\u2019s ranch.<\/p>\n Iverson Ranch scene circa 1950s with Cisco Kid and some of the Worthington children visiting from next door Chatsworth family ranch.<\/p><\/div>\n In Chatsworth, my grandparents had a property next to the Iverson Ranch<\/a>, the site of more than 2000 films and television shows. Called “the most shot up movie location in motion picture history,” the Iverson Ranch allowed us, kids, to watch the productions.<\/p>\n Kilmer’s father went on to buy the Roy Roger Ranch while my grandfather put his sights in other directions, including the development of shopping centers in Los Angeles and later a ranch in Valley Center, California, where he felt the air was smog-free.<\/p>\n Kilmer went on to, as he puts it, THE Julliard School, as the youngest student to be accepted into the drama department. I went on to New York University \u2026 and that’s where the similarities in life go in different directions!<\/p>\n As you weave through Kilmer’s stories of his life, you might question if the book is co-authored. It is not. He masterfully, in vivid prose, tells his life story in his own written words.<\/p>\n Val Kilmer as Mark Twain in VAL \u00a9 2020 A24 DISTRIBUTION, LLC. All Rights Reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n For Tombstone fans, the book title must assuredly only come from the famous line in the movie. But there’s more to the story. Kilmer chose the title of his memoir in part for his love of Huckleberry Finn.<\/p>\n When Huckleberry Finn first came into Kilmer’s life as a child, it began a lifelong love.<\/p>\n “The first time I read it, I was in what felt like an enchanted forest of pine trees. Leaves fell gracefully on my shoulders; mosquitoes nibbled on my ankles. I was Huck. Jim was my playmate \u2026 Twain struck a visceral chord, perhaps a lifetime’s worth of chords\u2026He was coarse and brilliant and funny and irreverent and honest and, as someone who deserted the Confederate army two weeks after joining, a famous coward. I came to love all these contradictions.”<\/p>\n Kilmer speaks candidly about his many stage and film roles. For example, “I used every element inside me to embody this character for The Doors.” He trained for months to sing like Jim Morrison as a baritone-tenor. To secure the part from director Oliver Stone, he made two tapes of himself and Morrison to see if Stone could tell them apart. Stone could not. Kilmer got the part.<\/p>\n Top Gun: “I didn’t want the part. I didn’t care about the film,” Kilmer said.<\/p>\n “I showed up looking the fool, or the goon. I wore oversize gonky Australian shorts in nausea green. I read the lines indifferently. And yet, amazingly, I was told I had the part. I felt more deflated than inflated.”<\/p>\n “I am none of the characters I have portrayed,” Kilmer said. “and I am all of the characters.”<\/p>\n High profile romances of Val Kilmer. (Clockwise from top left) Joanne Whalley, his Willow co-star, wife and mother of his two children; Cher, imprinting her hands in concrete at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre; Daryl Hannah; Carly Simon. (Photos: Deposit Photos)<\/p><\/div>\n Over the years, Kilmer had had many high-profile romances beginning with Cher when he was 21 and she was 14 years older, Joanne Whalley, his Willow co-star, wife and mother of his two children, Cindy Crawford, Daryl Hannah, and more.<\/p>\n A hilarious passage he shares about meeting and then dating Carly Simon sums up his loving personality. It was after midnight, almost early morning, in New York City. He saw “a woman waiting for the light which looked like Carly Simon. It was her\u2026<\/p>\n “I wanted to run across the street, fall on my hands and knees, and testify to my love of her music and her smile and the sheer see-through summer dress that revealed more than my eyes could absorb. I wanted to scream, wanted to declare my devotion to a woman I had never met. I wanted to do handstands and somersaults while declaiming Shakespearean soliloquies and quoting the sexiest passage from the Song of Song.”<\/p>\n But, like the others before and after, Carly was not meant to be in Kilmer\u2019s life long-term. At this point, he says, he has not had a girlfriend in 20 years., he said, leaving us to wonder has been in love or in love with love.<\/p>\n Val Kilmer’s daughter, Mercedes, in VAL. Photo: Courtesy of Amazon Stidops<\/p><\/div>\n In his memoir and documentary, Kilmer extols the love he has for his children. Mercedes, 30, and Jack, 26, appear in the documentary, with Jack supplying his uncannily Dad-alike voiceover. Mercedes is an actress in her own right having appeared in Paydirt (with her dad in 2020), Ingrid (2015), and Prettyface (2016).<\/p>\n Jack has also followed his parents’ footsteps with roles in Palo Alto (2013), Lords of Chaos (2018), and for the part of Ozzy Osbourne in Ozzy’s “Under the Graveyard” video.<\/p>\n And, there’s more coming. Thirty-five years after Top Gun, Kilmer returns as the character Iceman with sidekick Tom Cruise in the reprisal, Top Gun: Maverick, due November 2021.<\/p>\n “This is a competition film about family, friendship and sacrifice. It’s a love letter to aviation. We are going to show you what it is really like to be a top gun pilot,” said producer Jerry Bruckheimer.<\/p>\n Shot live with real fighter pilots, special equipment and technology, the film is a homecoming for Tom Cruise and Kilmer.<\/p>\n It’s clear that with the publication of Kilmer’s memoir, the documentary, and the upcoming role in the movie, new chapters are opening up for him.<\/p>\n Kilmer sums up his life best: “Let it also be known that this story is far from over.”<\/p>\n Val Kilmer, Visionary Artist, An Extraordinary Life<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11692,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[144,146],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2021","category-fall-2021-features"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11641"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16075,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11641\/revisions\/16075"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Depositphotos_750W-247x300.jpg\")
Next Great Challenge Will Not Stop Kilmer<\/h3>\n
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Val<\/h3>\n
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VAL KILMER I’m Your Huckleberry<\/em>. A Memoir<\/h3>\n
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Why “Huckleberry?”<\/h3>\n
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In Love or Be In Love with Love?<\/h3>\n
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True Loves of His Life: His Children<\/h3>\n
Top Gun: Maverick<\/h3>\n
I\u2019m Your Huckleberry: A Memoir<\/a> by Val Kilmer. Published by Simon & Schuster, \u00a9 2020.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"