With Val Kilmer’s Death, Doc Holliday Fans Mourn the Modern Old West Legend

Admirers of John “Doc” Holliday are mourning the actor, Val Kilmer, and saluting his portrayal of the dentist and gambler in the 1993 film, “Tombstone.” For Holliday fans, nobody else can ever embody the Old West legend who stood for law and order with the Earp Brothers in 1881’s Shootout at the O.K. Corral.Kilmer left this mortal coil on Tuesday at Los Angeles, ending a career that began when, at 17, he became the youngest actor ever accepted to the Julliard School. Although forced to retire in his 50s, an age when other leading men are just hitting their stride, he left scores of memorable performances across genres.Of all the lines he spoke, Kilmer chose one he repeats in “Tombstone” as the title of his 2020 memoir. In “I’m Your Huckleberry,” he wrote that he liked “the unintentional echo of Huckleberry Finn, which is my favorite novel.” Kilmer recognized that his line “playing the diseased Doc Holliday … has become iconic.” He also put to bed a myth that “the handles of caskets were called ‘huckles.’” He wrote, “I do not say, ‘I’m your huckle bearer.’ I say, ‘I’m your huckleberry,’ connotating, ‘I’m your man. You’ve met your match.’”The Chicago Sun-Times film critic, Roger Ebert, saluted Kilmer’s talents in 1992. “If there is an award for the most unsung leading man of his generation,” he wrote, “Kilmer should get it.” Fate had a more tragic plot in store. The actor was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014; a tracheotomy robbed his ability to speak.Kilmer emerged from retirement for 2022’s “Top Gun: Maverick.” His performance as Lieutenant Tom “Iceman” Kazanski was so memorable that audiences pined for his return. Few imagined, as Kilmer wrote in his memoir, that he didn’t want the role in the 1986 original and accepted it only to fulfill a contract. It was this dedication that helped Kilmer embody Holliday. The founding director of Georgia’s Holliday Dorsey Fife Museum, Victoria Wilcox, saw Kilmer interact with fans at Tombstone, Arizona, site of the clash featuring Holliday standing with lawmen Virgil, Wyatt, and Morgan Earp. Tombstone’s Doc Holli-Days commemorate the gunfight that left the outlaws Billy Clanton, Tom McLaury, and Frank McLaury dead. The 30-second shootout fixed Holliday as an Old West legend; Kilmer’s performance — informed by the screenwriter, Kevin Jarre — brought that legend to life.Ms. Wilcox described “Tombstone” as “a wonderful piece of literature” when she spoke to this columnist about her book, “The World of Doc Holliday” for The History Author Show. She allowed that it’s “hard for fans to swallow” that the film “took literary license with the history” and made alterations to Holliday.“When I started speaking around the country,” Ms. Wilcox said, she talked about “the real Doc Holliday history,” before she “finally realized” she had “to just give fans little bits of it, ’cause they really don’t want the truth.” They want Kilmer — even, she said, if the role calls for playing Holliday as a child.“Enthusiastic fans,” Ms. Wilcox tells The New York Sun, “say that Val Kilmer ‘channeled’ Doc Holliday. But that doesn’t do justice to his acting. Kilmer brilliantly portrayed the role that inspired a generation of Western fans and helped to bring life back to the real Tombstone, ‘the town too tough to die.’” In what Ms. Wilcox calls “everyone’s favorite scene,” Holliday gets the drop on the notorious Johnny Ringo. “He kills the bad guy, and he does it in such a clever way. And it never happened.” Kilmer’s accent was off, too. It’s Creole; Holliday was Georgian.Kilmer’s performance was so strong, Ms. Wilcox said, that his co-star, Kurt Russell, “threw out a lot of” his contributions as Wyatt Earp “in final editing and kept in a lot of Doc Holliday lines. … Doc rarely even says a whole sentence in that film. They’re all these great little quips.” The real Holliday, however, “was very wordy.” Fans, Ms. Wilcox said in our interview, feel that Kilmer “totally got robbed” of an Oscar for Holliday. “But it’s important to know that he wasn’t playing Doc. He was brilliantly acting a script.” In the wake of his death, she writes the role and Tombstone “will be his well-deserved memorials.”Kilmer’s performance in “Tombstone” forever blurred the line between actor and character. The audience may know that in their heads. But in their hearts, they’ll dismiss it, and say that when it comes to portraying Doc Holliday, “Val Kilmer will always be our Huckleberry.”

With Val Kilmer’s Death, Doc Holliday Fans Mourn the Modern Old West Legend

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