Blessed, Life and Films of Val Kilmer Read online

  You’ve probably already figured out the message of the special in this short description, people shouldn’t drink and drive, and the show has been praised for that message, although the show was criticized for inadequate character development. If the characters had been more thoroughly etched out then the viewer would have gotten more involved in their lives, so that when tragedy strikes you feel a greater impact.

  In his review in the Charlotte Observer, Jeff Borden observed that Michelle Pfeiffer should never have been cast as a sixteen-year-old, but this pretty common.

  Val says, “(I) got all kinds of letter from kids, powerful stuff. It made me feel good about what I do.”

  Top Secret

  6/8/1984

  Z.A.Z., an acronym for Zucker Abrams and Zucker, set out to do their third movie, they had already made the smash hit “Airplane,” and “Kentucky Fried Movie,” a collection of sketches and parodies. “Top Secret” was like the Kentucky Fried Movie in that they had originally just had ideas for a bunch of scenes, and then they tried to put the whole thing together.

  According to the commentary for the movie, which was done by the directors and producers Jon Davidson and Hunt Lowry, they hired Martin Burke to help Z.A.Z. write the film, “Because we needed someone who knew how to write plot.” Peter Lamont was the production designer who won an Oscar. For the female role they hired Lucy Gutteridge, a rising star at the time who had done TV and theater. Somehow they got Omar Sharif to play a small role in the film as Cedric, a spy hunted by the East Germans and betrayed by a carrier pigeon (or something like that).

  Z.A.Z. needed a lead man to star in the film, scripts were sent out. Val says, “They were so secretive about the movie that they whited out all the dialog when they sent the script around. I showed up (for the audition) dressed like Elvis, my hair like James Dean and acting like Marlon, and once I got in, I refused to break character, which I guess they liked.”

  The movie was shot from August to November of 1983 mostly in Pinewood studios outside of London, although there were scenes shot at Rockingham Castle, Ostery House, Wimbledon Theatre, and Thames Hall. Interestingly enough, the California beach scene was filmed in Cornwall Beach in England.

  In the scene where they dress up as a cow, there are actually three different cows they used to put the whole scene together. They had to paint the cow’s spots on them. The boots they wore didn’t fit, before production they went to a farm and tried dozens of boots on the cows, but none worked. They eventually figured out they could cut the soles out of the shoes and Velcroed them on.

  Omar Sharif accepted an invitation to the director’s apartment for dinner, but didn’t show up. They called his hotel, but he had already checked out. When they asked a mutual friend to ask him what had happened, he said that in Egyptian culture it’s rude to refuse anything, and that if someone offered you a glass of wine that you would accept it, but not drink it.

  Val sung his own songs, and in the concert scene he helped write some of the gags. The reactions of the girls at the concert were inspired by tapes of the Beatles. Val learned to play “Are You Lonesome Tonight” on the guitar for the film. After updating the directors daily about his progress, the directors waited until he told them he had learned the song before they told him it was funnier if you don’t know how to play. Val was very unhappy, but didn’t mention it until much later, and then he only mentioned the incident without saying their name (contrary to his bad reputation, Val usually only criticizes people indirectly, especially in interviews) until asked.

  The production had one of the funniest directorial teams of all time, two theater actors, a guy who knew plot, 208 sight gags, and a guy who would go on to win an Oscar (did I mention he didn’t win the Oscar for this film, it was for “Titanic”). Where could they go wrong, they even came in a million dollars under budget?

  There was no plot. Sorry Martin Burke.

  They tried to combine an Elvis movie parody with a World War II movie parody. Time inconsistency, place inconsistency. This could have been used as a comedic device, but instead the problems were ignored completely by the movie.

  Interesting facts:

  The production had many sequences where someone was speaking German, and a few lines are German, but most are Yiddish, or gibberish.

  The underwater scene took three or four days to complete, and when the chair is broken over his head, they couldn’t use a standard stunt chair because it would have fallen apart when he was swinging it in the water, so they had to install a lever.

  The ceiling in one of the opening scenes where the East German generals are conferring to take over the world (I hope I didn’t give any of the plot away) is a miniature suspended in front of the camera.

  Real Genius

  8/1/1985

  “Real Genius” was directed by the acclaimed director Martha Coolidge, who’s “Valley Girl” has been considered one of the best teen movies of the 80’s. Pat Proft, Neal Israel, and Peter Torokvei wrote the movie, and were responsible with giving Val one of the greatest assortments of one-liners ever known to man. Watch the movie and see if a few don’t stick in your head.

  The film was shot at Crystal Springs Ranch, Occidental College, and Pomona College, but was based on the real life Cal Tech. Most of the things that seem to be too far out to be true actually came from real life stories about the college (including the students having liquid nitrogen).

  In a part of the movie Lazlo (Joe Greis) submitted entries into Frito Lay’s contest, in 1974 Cal Tech student won one fifth of the prizes in a McDonald sweepstakes, including $3,000 cash, $1,500 in food and a station wagon. Parties from the movie are based on yearly celebrations at Cal Tech. The reference to a twelve year old who was admitted to the college but cracked under the pressure was based on a real student.

  Look for the initials DEI when watching, they appear throughout the movie. No one is really sure where they came from, but there has been an unofficial contest to see who can get the initials in the most public place. There is a rumor that there was some food that was so horrible only residents of the Dabney House ate, and so the initial might stand for Dabney eats it. There are reports on the initials appearing on Mount Rushmore, the Moon, and in unused portions of silicon chips made near the college.

  New Mexico

  Recently there has been controversy concerning Val and the state of New Mexico. Rolling Stone magazine quoted Val as saying that 80% of the people in his area were drunk and where he lived was the homicide capital of the southwest. The only way this even sounds like Val would be if he were being sarcastic. He lives in the small town of Pecos, a town of about 1,800 where no murders have occurred in anyone’s recent memory. His point then would be the exact opposite, that it’s a very safe town. Contrast this with Los Angeles, when Val was working on “The Salton Sea” they had to have armed guards when shooting in Los Angeles because a drug war was going on a few blocks from where they were shooting.

  If that wasn’t what he meant, then he was misquoted. Val reportedly made $9,000,000 on “Batman” and $8,000,000 on “The Saint.” People with that kind of money don’t live where they don’t want to unless it’s for work, not the case with Val since it’s not Hollywood.

  Val says, “To even have a chance of doing anything unique, (speaking about his home renovations) you have to know who you are. As a result, you should live where you feel most yourself.”

  Val has thanked the people of New Mexico for their support, had dinner with the governor, who declared him a good citizen. Val has owned two multi-million dollar houses in New Mexico, one he sold after his divorce for an undisclosed amount of money, the latest asking price was 1.65 million. Apparently there aren’t many multi millionaires in rural New Mexico, although this house isn’t very far away from Patrick Swayze, Ali MacGraw and Gene Hackman.

  Val speaks about his first house in an interview about “The Doors,” “Myself, (comparing his experience to Morison’s desert experience) I live on a ranch in New Mexico close
to an Indian reserve. It is a fantastic place, a place that humbles you, a place where the smallest thing that is able to survive is by nature very precious.”

  Val first saw New Mexico when he was a child, but fell in love with it when driving to Julliard; he stopped at Santa Fe, where he was going to stay a couple of days. When he left three and a half months later, he was in love with New Mexico.

  It’s apparent that Val’s done a lot of soul searching there, he says, “In New Mexico the mirror is a whole lot bigger -- and it’s not about vanity, it’s about soul. Here the mirrors are life-size and everywhere. Turn away from one, you see your reflection behind you. There’s no escape. Finally you end up staring yourself down. It’s sometimes painful, but stay in Santa Fe long enough, and, I guarantee, the cotton will get taken out of your ears.”

  “I’ve lived in three major US cities and I don't like it at all. It’s just the desert I love. I love to laze around and read a book or ride my horse or play with the buffalo at my ranch in Santa Fe. I live here and my mother lives there (Arizona) just a couple of hours away. I really like the quiet. I feel like for me, it’s a higher quality of living.... slower. Imagine it.... being able to ride for thousands of miles and all you experience are those thousands of miles. There’s nothing man-created to move through. It’s just the land. I find that extremely moving. I live in the US's fifth largest state, yet there are less people there than in Central London. There’s still quite a bit of space and it just does something for you. It creates a spirit that I find quite noble.”

  Val bought his first house in 1991, which sat on 27 acres, with views of the Sangre De Cristo and Jemez mountains. “I just found that I was unsatisfied living in New York, pursuing acting jobs in the theater where I felt I couldn’t – at least for my style - develop.”

  The house was in less than perfect shape, Joanne (his wife at the time) described it as, “a seventies condominium-looking wreck with glass walls.” This and there were bullet holes in the wall of the bedroom. They did some serious renovation to the place, doubling the size to 4,200 square feet. After the divorce he put the house up for sale and acquired another one in Pecos.

  Apparently Joanne must have handled the remodeling of the old house because Val found remodeling the new one more difficult than he expected, “I should’ve blown it up and built from scratch. I didn’t know how extreme renovation could be.” He ended up doubling the size of this house, and had to appoint himself architect, since no one else he interviewed shared his vision.

  Val says, “I wanted to be able to ride my horse, walk inside and not have my point of view change. I saw the possibility in the shell of this structure because of the windows. You can stare out the same window and experience a different mood from morning to night”

  He also added a connecting deck off of the master bedroom, a tennis court, a stable, and an area constructed especially for a family of buffalo. “Real people don’t name buffalo.” Val once said, but now they are named – probably because his kids have learned that you don’t eat or sell things with names – Bambi, Jezebel, and James Brown, the godfather of soul (so named because of the way it dances, as male buffalo do when the moon is full).

  The end result is a masterpiece that captured an article in the April ’98 edition of Architectural Digest Magazine. The house is predominately southwestern, but there are pieces from all over the world that he has acquired during his travels. One of Val’s favorite thing is candles, and the house if full of them. In the dinning room he has elk horn chandeliers lit only by candles.

  Val considered once removing all furniture from the library. According to Nathalie Kent, who helped him decorate, “Val lives on the floor in his library, laying on this back with his feet on the desk. He talks on the phone for hours, making his deals.” Val decided to keep the furniture, including two leather chairs he has owned since living in New York.

  “There is something grand about living in nature, being part of it. I did it the other day. It was 9:30, and I hadn't showered and I’m wondering, ‘is my next appointment here yet?’ All that stuff. And I realized that I wasn’t going to be involved with this river that day. And I just got right up, before I could talk myself out of it, and took a bath in the river instead. I thought, here’s the answer: If you want to get the sleep out of your eyes, why don’t you sit in the river for a couple minutes? You don't really need the coffee, do you? The river's kind of cold!”

  “I want it to be not a preserve but a living museum, although I don't even like those words.” According to Val locals have been fishing the river here since long before there were fences and that’s fine with him. “I don’t feel I own the land. I don’t look at it that way.”

  Journey to Victory

  1986

  Val directed this documentary about nuclear disarmament. Val says, “Most people want to label the film an anti-nuke documentary. But I prefer to say it’s simply about the ways we choose to communicate. I hope it will speak to both hawks and doves.” Also Val describes it as “an ability to communicate equal to what we have created technically, one that’s in harmony with what we’ve got going technically.”

  “I came to Santa Fe to write and work on my documentary, which isn’t finished yet. It has to do with the survival of the human species. It seems a bit robust, but the essential element of the film is a nuclear issue. I asked everyone I interviewed what their hopes and fears for the future are. I asked five-year-olds, 85-year-olds, Mexican farmers, housewives, physicians, doctors, lawyers. Everyone would basically say, ‘I hope we're still here.’ As Americans, we have a unique responsibility because we’re the only country that’s both strong and free. It’s a simple thing, really, to have a healthy respect for one’s power and, at the same time, to try to be a leader. I try to share that ideal in my work.”

  Val produced the film using mostly his own money. The film was shot in Washington, D.C., New York, Germany, the Soviet Union, and New Mexico. In typical Val style, he turned down numerous offers to make the film. Directing was a good experience for Val which will help him gain a stronger vision of how to achieve what he wants.

  Murders in the Rue Morgue

  12/7/1986

  The movie starred George C. Scott, Rebecca DeMornay, and Val Kilmer. The original short story by Edgar Allen Poe was written in 1841, adapted by David Epstein and directed by Jeannot Szwarc.“The Murders in the Rue Morgue” has added new plots to the Edgar Allan Poe tale, while keeping the original plot intact. If you haven’t read Poe short story or seen any other adaptations, you’ll have a hard time guessing the killer. George C. Scott plays Auguste Dupin, the retired detective, you see how he’s earned a reputation as one of the leading actors of our time. Rebecca DeMornay plays his daughter Claire well. Val plays an undemanding role as Philippe Huron, but he does it in a voice and mannerism that you’ve never seen him play before.

  Top Gun

  5/16/1986

  A lot of people started to notice Val after this movie. He didn’t want to do it at first, but was forced into the part of Iceman by his contract with Paramount. He wasn’t alone; Ali Sheedy (who said, “Who wants to see Tom Cruise flying around in an airplane) and Mathew Modine also refused to do the film (they apparently didn’t have a contract with Paramount). Brian Adams felt the movie glorified war and refused to allow his song “Only the Strong Survive” to be used.

  The producers wanted the action to be very realistic, so they hired a real Top Gun trainer Pete Pettigrew, a two star admiral who agreed to do a movie as long as it helped the Navy maintain realism and a good image. As the movie progressed it was obvious that excitement and drama were more important to the movie makers than realism.

  Simpson reportedly told Pettigrew that, “Mom and pop in Oklahoma wouldn’t know the difference, and that’s who they were making the movie for. The “hard deck” of 10,000 feet was ignored, even in scenes where they were specifically told to stay above it, this is a real rule enforced for the safety of the pilots, and while its believabl
e that someone might go for a kill and forget about the rule for a few seconds, it’s not believable that they would fly a whole training mission under the hard deck.

  In the end the commercial success of the film made Pettigrew concede that the filmmakers had made the film, “More exiting than real life.” The movie did $176,000,000 making it the biggest box office hit of 1986.

  Art Scholl, a stunt pilot, was killed in an airplane crash during the filming of the movie. It’s speculated that the cameras might have had something to do with the crash. The movie is dedicated to him.

  The movie won the Academy Award for best song (Take My Breath Away) and was nominated for best editing, sound and best effects and sound effect editing. “Top Gun” also won the People’s Choice Award for best movie.

  Val’s response when asked about the film, “ I just saw a piece of it the other day and I just remember (director) Tony Scott’s enthusiasm. He would get excited about your tape recorder if he could light it right. ‘Oh, man! That's great! Look at it!’ He'd get all descriptive about how he was going to shoot it. The guy would cry if a jet took off great. “‘Oh, did you see that!’”

  “It just was a silly story, I thought. And so I kind of remember being polite to Tony Scott, but I think he got the idea that I wasn’t much interested. It was really his passion for the story. He followed me out of the elevator and said, ‘It’s going to be great, man. F*****g ZOOM and f*****g VEER!’ It was like he just hustled me y’know? And he was like that. He never quite said anything, but he had great noises, y’know? ‘WOOOF! and you'll be this, wooof!’”