RIP Val Kilmer; ‘I’m Your Huckleberry’

By Owen Quinn author

There will be a lot of tributes today about the passing of Val Kilmer but how many will have that personal touch. Most will be bios of his career and quotes from fellow celebrities but I was a huge fan of the man and this one hurt hard for me.

For me, Kilmer has always been one of those actors who has always been there. Others have come and gone but there is something magnetic about Kilmer that has kept him in the industry this long. While he was a good looking man, he dominated the screen when he was on it. He had the most magnetic eyes and strong jawline giving him the classic leading man look, reminding us of the leading men from the golden days of Hollywood.

Everyone will rightly talk about Top Gun, Tombstone, The Doors and Batman and he did so many other things. As Batman, he had that chameleon quality similar to Keaton. In a way, he was the perfect Batman because with his good looks, nobody would ever think he would be a superhero. The rich playboy label to throw people off Bruce Wayne’s night time activities has never fitted so well under Kilmer’s reign.

He was a great leading man; his Jim Morrison was so good that the surviving members of The Doors said they couldn’t tell the difference between the singing voice of Kilmer and the real Jim Morrison. He was also a great hero, best exemplified in Willow. Willow gave Kilmer the chance to play the hero without the limits of the Batman character and he was fun, exuberant and multilayered as Madmartigan. In some aspects, he was an even more fun version of Han Solo. People also forget that he was the voice of the super car KITT in the short-lived Knight Rider reboot. Remember Deja Vu?

No tribute can ever be complete without acknowledging his return to Top Gun despite being ill with throat cancer. And there can be no more touching tribute to a person than the quality of the things his friends say about him in their passing. Tom Cruise did him proud when talking about his return to Top Gun Maverick while his friend Josh Brolin is heartbroken. Kurt Russell formed a special bond with Kilmer on the set of Tombstone (has there ever been a better version of Doc Holliday). And when you think about it, that’s what we all want when we go. We only see the performance but his friends see the real man. But in Val’s case, we all got to see the dignity he displayed in his health issues.

Pause and think for a moment because the world really has lost a legend. They are few and far between and there won’t be a movie buff’s household today that will not be watching something featuring Val Kilmer and reminding us that his legacy will live on through his performances.