by Val Kilmer
Hoffman affected me in a much different way when, as a teen, I saw The Graduate. I was mesmerized by the end of the film, when Dustin shows up at church, bangs on the glass above the altar, and saves his sweetheart from marrying a man she doesn’t love. They escape the predictable world of middle-class conformity and head out into a new world of unpredictable romance. There came a glorious moment when, as an adult, I got to tell Dustin how he had inspired me. Those two roles came around at just the right time. I loved him as an adopted Native American and loved him just as much as a projection of a young man willing to do whatever it took to live for love, even running off to points unknown. Man, did I relate!
Spooked by Love
I was covered in wanderlust.
I wandered not only into nature; I wandered between the homes of Mom and Dad, seeking solace that was never quite there. My parents’ separation was a setup for deceit. I could tell Mom I was at Dad’s and vice versa. Because they had no interest in speaking to one another, I was free to roam.
Roaming through Chatsworth had its limits. I could only go so far and see so much. No matter how spread out, suburbia imposes stultifying confinement. That may be another reason why my roaming took a literary bent. Books have no such confinement. They opened me to the world. I read everyone from Thomas Mann to Edgar Allan Poe.
To live inside a book was one thing, but to act inside a play was a far more visceral thrill. There the paradox of lost-and-found was irresistible. Lose Chatsworth, find Elizabethan England. Find Shakespeare. And having found Shakespeare, never look back.
That this happened to me was the result of pure luck. At fourteen, I left Berkeley Hall and enrolled at Chatsworth High. The next year I received a learner’s permit, allowing me to flee to the desert on weekends. My first car was a sky-blue Mercedes 280SL, bought for me when my father was flush. I promised I’d pay him back. It took me years, but eventually I did. The Benz was heaven. I raced that car with many fools on Interstate 405. I went wherever my parents weren’t, up and down the California coast, emulating the plays of Sam Shepard, a man who, later in life, would be a friend and fellow rabble-rouser. Even before digesting the work of Kerouac and Ginsberg, I lived as a beatnik. I was writing plays and poems, aware that my family history is replete with scribes of every stripe, from troubadours to historians.
At a ridiculously early age, I was spiritually ambitious, devising five-year plans to achieve self-realization and change my life forever. I’m convinced that every plan worked, even as every plan failed. I carried heavy books on my outings into nature. When they became too heavy to lug any longer, I left them at my favorite sights, imagining that a fellow wanderer would find enlightenment at the very spot where I had laid my burden down.
Brother Wesley was far more product oriented than me. During our Arizona summers with Mom, he wrote plays and films, and having rehearsed us into the ground, he achieved a level of artistry you might imagine from a childhood Steven Spielberg. Once he gathered up every wire coat hanger in the house to twist into a mammoth octopus for his adaptation of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Wesley’s imagination dwarfed mine, even with my penchant for absurdity. His range of talents was staggering.
I am reminded of an unforgettable on-screen brotherhood, one of the few moments in my career reminiscent of the innocent and gnarly rapture of my boyhood. If you listen closely to certain scenes in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, you can hear me trying to mess with Robert Downey Jr., even as the cameras were rolling. You can hear him saying, “Val, seriously, stop. Shut up, Val.” Oh man, I could watch those scenes over and over. Robert is a brother to me and one of the few creatures who reminds me of Wesley’s feral, incomparable spirit.
Anyway, Wes would make these plays or films and proudly introduce them to the after-dinner guests assembled in the lobby of Mom and Bill’s ranch. By that time, though, Bill was already crocked and couldn’t restrain from shouting out the blue jokes he’d just read in the current Playboy. We cringed but carried on. Fortunately—and miraculously—Bill ultimately had a healing from hooch.
In the seventies, Beverly Hills High was seen as the ultimate site for student actors—everyone from Carrie Fisher to Jamie Lee Curtis to Nic Cage—and I did spend time in that enclave of affluence. But Beverly Hills gave me no pleasure and in fact added to my antipathy for the Westside of Los Angeles. With all this wealth, why no city planning? Why no architectural cohesion? The place was a mad urban scramble, an ugly maze best described back in the sixties by Burt Bacharach and Hal David when they had Dionne Warwick singing, “LA is a great big freeway.”
Fortunately—and amazingly—Chatsworth’s drama department was ranked second only to that of Beverly Hills High. The staff included a brilliant instructor, Robert Carrelli, the kind of drama teacher who changes lives. At Chatsworth, a few budding actors stood out, one of whom was Mare Winningham. She was grounded and so wise beyond her years, an incredible talent. And she became my first real girlfriend. I felt so much less worldly and glamorous. And yet, no doubt about it, Mare and I fell in love. When Mare and I were cast in shows together, it ignited some kind of crazy competitive streak, equally fierce in each of us. Backstage we would bicker like divorcés. If anything, that might have energized our acting. The third member of our friendship trio was Wesley’s close friend Brad Koepenick, who would later transition from underage dangler-on to talented actor with dazzling wit. Brad became a calming presence and an integral ingredient to life for both me and Mare, as he remains today. Mare’s mother, an English teacher, was a devout Catholic. I always wondered if she saw my spiritual leanings as legitimate. She herself had the enlightened aura of a nun. Mare’s dad was considered the best sports coach in the county. Mare had a lovely older sister and younger brother who turned me on to the Kinks. Loved their lyrics, although my deeper love was for Led Zep and Creedence Clearwater and ethereal singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson. And of course the beastly Beatles. Mare is a natural-born singer with a Judy Garland–like musical presence who sounded more like Joni Mitchell. She is a sublime soul. To the Winninghams, I was the boy they feared would impair Mare’s otherwise impeccable reputation. (I’m paraphrasing here.) They thought I was out to ruin her life. I didn’t mean to, but they were right. Nonetheless, Mare became my sweetheart. I was smitten. She and I worked feverishly on weekends, washing cars and doing every other odd job to save money to fly to New York to see genuine Broadway theater.
With Mare Winningham and awards won at the Los Angeles Valley College Play Festival
A note to drama teacher Robert Carelli upon deciding at the last minute to change my monologue for a competition: “I, Val Kilmer, will indeed and hitherto agree to, if in fact I do not place at the upcoming Shakespeare Festival on the date of April 23, in the year of our lord, nineteen hundred and seventy seven, wash your new car at least once a week, until I depart for the Big Apple.” I won first place.
With Mare Winningham in New York City
I’d been to the city once before. A couple years earlier I went to Pittsburgh, where stepdad Bill had inherited a home from his father. I convinced Mom and Bill to extend our trip to New York. I had to see Gotham. I also had to see Rip Torn playing the son in The Glass Menagerie, because in our school production I’d just played that same part—Tom Wingfield, warehouse worker who dreams of being a poet. I embraced those dreams. Like Tom, I even took up smoking, so I could render the character more realistically. Though I hated the habit, I stayed shackled to cigarettes for a long while. I wasn’t a bad Tom, but Torn showed me the difference between good and great. He breathed Tom’s very breath.
Like a hundred million first-timers before me, New York fueled my fires. I ran with its rhythms. Its energy had me crazy. I quote from Steely Dan’s “Green Book,” which half-quotes Burt Lancaster’s sleazy gossip king in Sweet Smell of Success: “I’m so in love with this dirty city, its crazy grid of desire.” I promised Broadway I’d be back.
I kept the promise when Mare and I arrived with our school drama group. Our
Times Square hotel was dormlike, with boys and girls in separate rooms, but, resourceful teenagers that we were, Mare and I found a way to snuggle in the hallway. At one point we slept most of the night there. Utter bliss. We took a chance on love.
While I was going with Mare, I certainly kissed other girls but never imagined she would kiss another boy until I had an extraordinary dream. It happened when I was visiting my mom in Arizona. In the vision, I saw Mare with another boy in Idyllwild, some four hours away at the foot of the San Jacinto Mountains. When I awoke, I borrowed my stepdad’s car and drove three hundred miles. When I arrived, I followed some signs that pointed to a swimming club. I saw a white arrow etched in a tree. I was moving by feel and feel alone. Then, just as in my dream, coming out of the dark woods, I saw Mare and this boy kissing. I was angry and hurt but, more than anything, amazed at the accuracy of my premonition. I was spooked by love.
The Deepest Wound
Back in Chatsworth, Mare and I ended our romance but continued our friendship. We both grew increasingly enamored of theater. We came up in an era when school drama productions were huge. Some of our performances were reviewed in the Los Angeles Times. When the school put on The Sound of Music, Mare played Maria. Bit by the classical bug, I acted in Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, Equus, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Henry IV, Richard II, and Macbeth. The sophistication of our repertoire was phenomenal.
What does it mean to be called a ham? Was I a ham? I was naturally and inordinately theatrical. I liked to carry on. I liked attention. I liked extravagant speech. I liked to emote. I liked to talk. It didn’t matter that I usually didn’t know what I was talking about. And I loved it when dramatists elevated talk to poetry. So I did the same. I started writing dramas and poems. Some might have been painfully bad, but some might have shown signs of promise.
The Hollywood Professional School, where I enrolled for a year, was filled with hams, kids hungry to stand before audiences and elicit a positive response. I wound up there because some friends from grade school had told me about it. They had formed a singing duo and were often on the road. They said the school didn’t care and the teachers didn’t keep track of who played hooky. They said so many of the kids were either out on auditions or in rehearsal that attendance records were loose, and you could show up or skip school whenever you wanted—a system that suited me fine.
Hollywood in the midseventies was filled with ghosts. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison had died only a few years earlier, and the last remnants of hippiedom were on full display: wild-eyed girls who, lost from their last acid trip, never found their way home; homeless vagrants; homeless musicians; porn shops; sleazy lingerie boutiques. It was tough telling the down-and-out homeless from the down-and-out musicians. Behind the anonymous doors of recording studios, Earth, Wind & Fire was cutting “Shining Star,” Glen Campbell was singing “Rhinestone Cowboy,” and Stevie Wonder was putting the final touches on Songs in the Key of Life. But I was just a kid standing in front of the window of Frederick’s of Hollywood mystified by the peekaboo brassieres and panties sculpted in scarlet and hot pink. Hollywood was seedy, but sensationally so. Like its New York City counterpart, Times Square, it would ultimately be sanitized in the name of wholesome family tourism, but I liked danger lurking around the corner. The man who dressed in tatters and couldn’t stop muttering obscenities to himself didn’t bother me. I’d started reading the poet Charles Bukowski, who wrote, “Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.”
I always wanted to get out of Los Angeles. I saw it as a sun-scorched city whose mission was to please the world at any cost so that the world, in turn, would reward its roster of outrageous heroes with ridiculous wealth. If Hollywood was all about harmless entertainment, Manhattan was about harmful art. I saw New York City as dangerous and daring. New York City was the country’s center of classical theater. I gravitated toward that genre—with its bloody and murderous themes—because it was the hardest to master.
One meaningful morning I happened to mention to brother Mark something about acting schools. I was debating between the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and THE Juilliard School. (The capitalization is intentional for reasons you’ll discover shortly.) I was thinking ahead. Mark had an interesting response. “You’re trying to decide between fancy drama schools that will seal your fate in the history of theater while I’m trying to decide between Bob’s Big Boy and Burger King. What are you?”
“The only thing I can ever be: an actor.”
So off I went to the city where Brando, the north star of my theatrical fantasies, had lit up the night thirty-three years earlier.
On the way to New York, Mom, Bill, and I stopped at Bill’s house in Pittsburgh. In the past, I’d stay in the same room with my brothers. But Mark was enrolled in a Christian Science college, and Wesley was about to start Chatsworth High. It was September. It was hot and humid. I wasn’t used to humidity. Finally I was able to fall asleep. Even now, I can remember the details of my dream. I was having an easy discussion with Mare and her mom about God. I asked Mrs. Winningham if she was afraid of death. She answered instantly. “No, not at all,” she said. “Because I’ll be with my creator. I look forward to meeting whoever/whatever created me.” I said, “Thank you for describing death in this way. You make me feel comfortable.” I awoke from the dream to the sound of a ringing phone. Afraid it would awaken Mom, I ran to answer it. It was Mark. He asked, “Where are you?” I knew. “In the kitchen,” I said. He told me to go downstairs and call him back. I did. He said that our little brother, Wesley, had suffered an epileptic fit in the Jacuzzi, drowned, and died in the ambulance. I paused. I breathed.
I remember trying to comfort Mark, saying that it was impossible for Wesley to be gone since life is eternal and all of us are here forever. Mark listened and then said, “Put Mom on the phone.” Mom fell apart, as did Bill. Wesley was Bill’s favorite. Wesley was everyone’s favorite. The adults wept like children. Yet the adults, being adults, knew they had to make plans. We would not be driving on to New York. We would be flying home to bury my brother.
And as for my dad, everything that was rapid and rapturous about him slowed almost to a halt. His charisma faded. The house went from fantastical, filled with friends and frenetic energy, to almost completely abandoned.
I felt abandoned. I didn’t even want to view his body. He had been so full of life; I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to see him not breathing. I avoided craziness only because of my faith. My faith fortified me. I leaned on the teachings of Mrs. Eddy, who understood God only in terms of positivity. At the same time, this became the tragic event of my young life. Perhaps my entire life. Wesley’s death changed everything. I tried to accept the idea, substantiated by reading the Bard, that tragedy is not without its gifts. But acceptance was and will always be onerous. As I write these words, I yearn for Wesley’s company. I want my brother alive, physically not just spiritually. I want him back. I want him standing next to me. I understand this is selfish. Sometimes he comes to me through other talents—talented people, male and female—and he kind of chastises me for being silly about life. I apologize and he says, “Even that is a form of selfishness. Just get on with it. No one wants to see or hear a handsome, successful, talented writer-actor-director who gets the most impossible-to-get girls in the world complain about a damn thing. Plus, all that is nothing. Nothing compared to your real purpose. Your gift of healing. That’s why you are here and that’s why you will stay. Get healing, ya wuss. Get on with it.”
SAND
[THE SET IS BARE. AN ACTOR LAYS ON HIS SIDE, SLIGHTLY PROPPED UP.]
Act and ye shall receive
It lives green from the desert
For the desert believes
Sand, it is poured in my side
When it is still, and it is night,
And ground on even lines rests
In sleep.
When sheets and pillows and smooth mounds that
Comfort are like home-safe, distort to move in
To what is pain for me… then I move, and then I ask
For my dream again.
[THE ACTOR SITS UP, AS IF HE HAS BEEN TAKEN OUT OF CHARACTER. LOOKS DIRECTLY INTO SOME MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE AS IF THEY ARE IN CHARGE OF HIS FATE.]
[HUMBLY] I’m sorry. Can I start over?
[IF THERE IS A RESPONSE, HE ABRUPTLY CHANGES, ALMOST SNIDELY, BUT WITH DEEP COMPASSION, ALMOST SADLY. AS IF THERE IS NOW NO WAY OUT FOR ANY OF US, EVER.]
No. And that’s a point, for I can never really be sorry.
I can only apologize for you…
For you she said, [AT GREAT COST] “It is plain that nothing can be added
To the mind already full…”
Now I truly believe that; only it must be as when
(In our ignorance of innocence)
We had our choice of things, because we left things
The way they are.
Without sand. It is poured in my side, when it is still
And it is night
And I see plain
And my error remains
And I choose, to lose my senses,
To sand… [APPEALING TO THE EVER-PRESENT DIVINE PRESENCE]
Again?
—Wickenburg, Arizona, 1976
THE Juilliard School
There was no turning back from New York. I went there shortly after Wesley’s funeral. I needed it, wanted it, was incapable of resisting. The audition required two readings—one classical, one contemporary. For the classical, I chose Mercutio’s soliloquy on Queen Mab, the fabulous doyenne of the faeries whom Shakespeare transforms into a hag. For the contemporary selection, I announced that I would be reading my own poem, “Sand.”
