I'm Your Huckleberry

by Val Kilmer

  New Mexico Is Called the “Land of Enchantment” or, as I’m Proud to Have Coined, the “Land of Entrapment”

  Grow it as it goes.” That’s the slogan for New Mexico, taken from an ancient poem by the Roman philosopher Lucretius. It’s an apt description of my relationship to a state that plays a huge part in my story, where people aren’t the only characters. Places can be major characters. In introducing the character of New Mexico, my original intention was to write a long list of everything that is wrong with the state. It’s so touristy. All strip malls. Be careful of the fake turquoise. The idea was to scare people away so New Mexico would not suffer from overcrowding and all the other deadly drawbacks that come with unchecked invasion. I wanted to echo Georgia O’Keeffe, who said, “When I got to New Mexico… I saw it… was my country… It’s something that’s in the air—it’s different. The sky is different… I shouldn’t say too much about it because other people may be interested and I don’t want them interested.” (O’Keeffe also said, “I hate flowers—I paint them because they’re cheaper than models and they don’t move.”)

  But although I feel protective about my adopted state, I cannot restrain myself. I must extol its glorious virtues. Go there, relish its beauty, but please clean up after yourselves and leave ever-so-light carbon footprints. Thank you.

  It’s a cliché, or perhaps critical to my sensibility, that after my childhood visits with my family I rediscovered New Mexico through a siren of sorts, a fascinating woman with a boring name: Jane Smith. We met at Hollywood mega-agent Sue Mengers’s house. I was brushing shoulders with superstars… when Michael Jackson walked in. He had a lady on his arm who was one of the most gorgeous people I’d ever witnessed, whom he discarded like an umbrella as soon as he walked in the door. As he moved through the room, heads turned like we were in a choreographed commercial, and he was beelining for none other than my own former girlfriend, Cher.

  I was in my twenties, Jane in her forties. By then Cher and I were no longer a couple. If I could describe our breakup, I would. But I can’t because it never really happened, at least not formally. She never said, “Val, I’m through with you,” and I never said, “That’s it, Cher. We’re history.” Our histories ran on parallel tracks. Our friendship deepened. We just moved on.

  Jane Smith had a wealthy swagger about her. She spoke about her home state, New Mexico, as though she were speaking of a long-lost soul mate. When she invited me to visit her there, I did. She was living with a locally famous lesbian, Betty Stewart, who was not Jane’s lover but a strong partner. They cherished each other. Betty was famous for building classic territorial-style triple-thick adobe homes for millionaires across Santa Fe. She was part artist, part builder. Everyone warned me as soon as they found out I was staying in one of Jane’s guest rooms on Betty’s property that I was likely to wake up with a gun in my face or something similarly dramatic, but to their surprise Betty and I got along immediately and famously. I don’t know why or how. Perhaps it’s that she hailed from Texas and my father was born in the panhandle. Texans like that about me, and I don’t mind sharing that fact within the first two minutes of meeting a Texan. The saying is true: don’t mess with them about their state, or they will spend the rest of the night telling you about how they have seriously contemplated seceding themselves from our great experiment.

  But back to New Mexico, a state in which you are obligated to treat people right. Years later, as New Mexico became my spiritual home, I befriended Sam Shepard, who exemplified those deeply human qualities of empathy and compassion. So while it was a mortal goddess who initially called me back to my ancestors’ land, I believe it was the God of Love that had me return again and again to the state, where, like my father, I longed not only to live on its land but to possess a large parcel of it for myself. That parcel was precious. I loved it and lost it. But all that’s later. And my heart still aches.

  In my early trips to New Mexico I had, in addition to my connection with she of the wealthy swagger, another pivotal experience. This one was seismic. I encountered an angel. I was wide awake. I was indoors. It happened on my birthday. I had just turned twenty-four. I was asleep and awoke suddenly to an amorphous black figure before me. It will ruin the absolute gravity of this moment but in truth this dark angel looked very like Darth Vader, though without the helmet. The figure seemed to be covered in a black shroud that every now and again revealed the slightest outline of a face. It took up space in an infinitely eternal way. I was afraid.

  I addressed it by saying in my mind, “I can feel you reading my mind.”

  He replied, “That’s not what’s happening.”

  Well, that proved it, didn’t it? It’s indescribable when someone or thing can read your mind, and I said so—or thought it.

  “I have nowhere to hide.”

  I knew this was a sacred encounter and yet, like Mary or Moses, I felt fear. He then reached in, extracted my heart, and held it before me. It had a purple-blackish hue, leading me to joke, “Is it that bad?”

  “No,” he said. “I’m just giving you a bigger one.”

  The bigger heart, spinning rather than beating, was placed inside my body.

  At first I thought it was the Angel of Death before realizing it was the Angel of Life. I wish I could elucidate the experience more than I have already done, but I can’t. It simply happened. I remember pinching myself as hard as I could in hopes of bruising myself, so that if I fell back asleep or was put to sleep by this dark angel, I would be able to prove to myself this was a real experience. I looked at my clock and noticed it was moments before I was born that morning twenty-four years ago. Somehow the spell was over, and just as I thought, I did fall fast asleep and woke up the next day with a bruise on my arm. I have nothing else to say about this, except that I am grateful for the new heart. It has served me well. And I’ve only just begun to use it.

  * * *

  I have always affirmed life in the spiritual realm. At the same time, I love living and the beauty of shapes and the variety of life in the material world. That Love is undergirded by the rigors of backpacking. I am a backpacking freak. I devoured books like Colin Fletcher’s The Man Who Walked Through Time, his riveting chronicle of trekking from one end of the Grand Canyon to another. So when I got word that Hollywood genius Jeffrey Katzenberg was organizing a rafting trip down that same canyon, I was waiting for an invitation that never came. It’s the only time in my career I was jealous of Tom Cruise—and this was before Top Gun. Jeffrey included Tom on the list. Was that because his star turn in Risky Business outshined my turn in Top Secret!? Or was it Tom’s publicist? Well, if it was the publicist, I’d hire her. Except she wasn’t buying me. She suggested I employ a less powerful flack who specialized in selling pretty faces. Forced humility is always good for the soul, but I can’t say I was happy. I decided to go with no publicist at all.

  Then came a blissful surprise of a romance. I encountered Ellen Barkin, who had the best smile in all five boroughs. She was a proud native of the Bronx. Our romance was as whimsical as it was whirlwind. This was after she’d been in Diner with Mickey Rourke and Tender Mercies with Robert Duvall. I remember her wit, her sultry eyes, but mostly her laugh. And her hair. Who remembers the softness of a woman’s hair? If you ever have a chance to consensually ever-so-gently touch Ellen’s hair, it will be worth the look she’s gonna drop on you. Ellen has a helluva stare. I was crazy for her, and we had some fabulous months window-shopping on Rodeo Drive by day and barbecuing at night, crushing ice and swishing lemons and limes in one of those weird board games of summer love. Ellen was one of the enchantresses who got away, no doubt due to my unmanageable preoccupations, my neglect. I want to call it benevolent neglect, but I’m afraid that term is a bit too self-serving. Is it enough to say that when it comes to women, I’m a fool? In my defense, I want to cite a thousand popular songs. I want to avoid the entire subject of my relationship to women. But I can’t, and I won’t. All I can do is try my damndest to be honest—ho
nest about my absolute failings to take advantage of the scores of opportunities afforded me by the answer to prayers. As I wrote in my one-man show Citizen Twain, about the honorary founding father: “I think it ain’t that prayer doesn’t work, it’s that we don’t like the answers.”

  Romance among actors is no simple matter. We are always on edge and always on the move. The phone rings and we’re off to London or back to LA from New York. We’re not only driven to perform our craft but also propelled, like athletes, by the inbred competition of show business. We run into each other at parties, on backlots, in agents’ offices. We kiss, we hug, we wish one another well. We mean it, we don’t mean it, we feel bad for not meaning it. But our drive—whose source remains a mystery—does not diminish. Therefore romance is at once a necessity, a delight, and its own special thrill.

  As I’ve said concerning artistic projects, I am subject to distraction. I am subject to impetuosity. The same goes for romance. I take it seriously. I accept these liaisons as lovely interludes. Some lasted for years, some for months. All last forever.

  I Did Top Gun, Son

  I didn’t want the part. I didn’t care about the film. The story didn’t interest me. My agent, who also represented Tom Cruise, basically tortured me into at least meeting Tony Scott, saying he was one of the hottest directors in town and I could never afford to not meet with as many of them as possible, and also he was completely obsessed with me. Well, an agent doesn’t have to offer any other reasons when “the director is completely obsessed with you” comes out of their mouth.

  I showed up at the audition because that’s what actors do when they’re asked to audition. 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. I had to get out of there.

  The moment I got into the elevator, the director ran after me and slid his arm in to block the door. He blurted his truth in his chipper British accent: “I know that the script is insufficient, but it will get better, Val. Wait until you see these jets. They take your breath away.” He then proceeded to imitate aircraft sounds and motions as if we were six years old and as if there were no one else in the hallway. “I know you’ve been told this before, I know you’re a serious actor, but you are perfect for this role. It’s as if they wrote it for you. It has to be you. It’s not the lead, but I’m going to make you feel like it is. And this kid we found, Tom Cruise, he has it, man, and you two together, and Kelly McGillis—you know her from Juilliard, she’s nine feet tall and utter perfection.”

  He was a wrecking ball to my consciousness. I had never before been treated with such passion. I was so accustomed to giving passion, less familiar with receiving it.

  Side note: I once flew to London when I couldn’t afford a ham sandwich to sit in a hotel room with a single videotape in hopes of hand-delivering it to Stanley Kubrick. Eventually I befriended one of his “people,” who told me after my forty-eighth phone call in one week, “I’m sorry, Val. He really liked the last video you did. I am not supposed to say this, but he’s really interested. In fact, we have stopped pre-production because of that last video. But he won’t see you. He just doesn’t work like that.”

  Self-taping was new at the time, and Kubrick must have been enchanted with it. I got it. I was enchanted myself and had been shooting me and my friends since I could get my hands on a magical machine of my own. But Kubrick’s stubbornness sent me home, deflated.

  Tony Scott’s British enthusiasm was the pick-me-up my ego craved. He was ferocious and hilarious. We both had penchants for fishermen’s vests. His was primly packed with pens, folded paper, and cigars, plus a monocle cinematographers use to examine the sun. Now video cameras adjust to let you film through the night, but it wasn’t like that back then.

  Tony loved the process, loved the energy of the set, loved the characters. Everything was fuel to Tony. Every time a jet took off, Tony swooned. I threw lines away. He would jump for joy. Ultimately, he overwhelmed my disdain for the project with pure unadulterated positivity. Every day he would exclaim, “This is incredible! This is beautiful! This is beyond belief. You guys are going to be kings.”

  Tony Scott

  Off set, the actors broke into two camps—mine and Tom’s, a reflection of the rivalry between our two characters. In the film, I was Iceman and Tom was Maverick. I commanded my camp because I had a tricked-out van.

  We were the party boys. Every night we’d hit the San Diego nightlife. Once we were stuck at an intersection where all four lights were red. I peeled out, spinning and burning rubber in a perfect circle, showing off. Until we cozied right up to a cop car. He looked at me like, Really, dude?

  He didn’t even bother turning on his lights. I just pulled over and begged my drunken passengers, in my firm Iceman voice, to sit up straight and to let me do all the talking. Since I hadn’t been drinking, I was able to quickly rely on my actor’s instinct.

  “Where’s the fire, boys? License and registration.” I snapped my fingers as if Rick Rossovich, who played the pilot Slider, worked for me. He popped open the glove box, and I started. “Officer, the fire is in my producer’s eyes. It’s entirely my fault but we’re about forty minutes late for the movie we are shooting down here called Top Gun.”

  “Oh, Top Gun. Yeah, I’ve heard of it. My brother is a pilot.”

  “Oh, a real pilot. Outstanding. We’re a bit lost. Perhaps you can point us in the right direction.”

  “It smells like a frat party in here.”

  “Yes, officer. I’ll tell these bozo ruffians to shower.”

  “All right, then. Go on. Be careful. And take it easy. That was some crazy driving, son.”

  “Yes, sir. And best to your brother, sir.”

  The uncannily blessed lives that actors lead. A privilege of uncountable latitude.

  Tom refrained from our revelry, with good reason. From day one, he was laser-focused on a singular goal: to become the greatest action hero in the history of film. He was up nights learning lines; he spent every waking hour perfecting his stunts. His dedication was admirable. Of course even more admirable is the fact that he achieved his goal. I also love that he’s a Mark Twain fan. Tom is a comrade I respect and admire, though as creatures we hail from galaxies far, far away from one another.

  My favorite moment between us was a small prank in which I gave him an extremely expensive bottle of champagne but placed it in the middle of a giant field and made him follow scavenger-hunt-style clues to find it. I hid behind a bleacher and watched him lug the giant crate to his motorcycle. He never did thank me for the Iceman-style bit. I thought it would break the ice, but I guess the ice was just right.

  All in all, the movie was both a blast and an education. I hear the voice of poet Ezra Pound, who, in one of his cantos, wrote, “Pull down thy vanity,” but I am afraid my vanity is about to be put on full display. Take the famous volleyball game. It was a real game with all us showing off our pecs. Because I was the only Californian in the match, I was actually the only real volleyball player and couldn’t help but demonstrate my best moves. We got loads of sweaty, sexy close-ups. I was happy with the day’s work until Tony ran up to me the next day looking like he’d seen a ghost.

  As Tom “Iceman” Kazansky

  “Horror of horrors,” he said. “We overexposed some of the film and your close-ups have been ruined.”

  I wasn’t happy and wouldn’t have minded a reshoot of the entire scene, but that was not within my purview. Tony was genuinely remorseful and I let him know that, as proud as I was of my physique, a little less cheesecake would hardly hurt the film. Besides, certain moments that I had improvised, like spinning the ball on my finger and the trash-talking locker room scene, made it into the film. I must also take partial credit for the weird crew cut I sported. The style was Tony’s idea, but I went out of my way to make it weirder. When it turned into a national fad—thousands of guys st
arted emulating the coif—I was flabbergasted. And that’s a word you just don’t get to say that often and mean it.

  Another point of pride was flying in the jets. Though I was never really doing it, I learned the mechanics of operating the plane. We all went up in the jets several times and—here comes more vanity—I have to report that I was the only one who didn’t regurgitate, which, given the gut-wrenching drops and spins of those ferocious flights, was no mean feat.

  The servicemen loved partying with us. At one such fête, a flyboy came up and said, “Val, you’re the one who operates like a real pilot.” With each word of praise, he struck my chest—all in the spirit of manly goodwill—until he left a silver-dollar-size bruise that took weeks to heal.

  And then, just like that, our real-world counterparts, our advisers, were gone. They had to fly off on a secret mission. At the outset, I saw Top Gun as jingoistic, but in the spring of 1986, about a month before the release, the US carried out airstrikes on Libya for terrorist attacks at airports in Vienna and Rome, which gave the film a relevance it had previously lacked.

  As filming went on, I grew more serious about my on-screen character. Even though I could play an arrogant jerk in my sleep, I actually found myself looking deeply into this guy. What made him arrogant? The question intrigued me. I thought about it for long stretches of time. Even dreamed about it. And then, without any forethought, I applied whatever I had learned (or unlearned) at THE Juilliard School, whatever I had read of Stanislavski and Suzuki, whatever natural instincts I had, and brought it all to bear in Tom “Iceman” Kazansky. I became so obsessed that at one point in my trailer I actually saw—the way Macbeth saw the ghost of Banquo—Iceman’s father, the man (my imagination told me) who had ignored his son to the point where his son was driven to prove himself as the absolute ideal man. So real was the elder Mr. Kazansky that I saw him take a chunk of ice and chew on it like a wild dog (which inspired my improvised ice-chewing and teeth-chomping moment in the film). I even spoke to him. As Iceman, I asked him, “What do you want of me, Dad?”