I'm Your Huckleberry

by Val Kilmer

  Or maybe I just wanted him to think I was cool.

  Anyway, Bob, I haven’t given up on the dream of a retake.

  Call me.

  True Romance

  During this same period it was certainly a strange gift to be cast as Elvis in Tony Scott’s hyperviolent True Romance. The enthusiastic Tony, who had won my heart when he directed me in Top Gun, was set to film a script written by Quentin Tarantino. I was hoping to see Quentin on set, but he wasn’t around much. He was off writing another script. True Romance was his first major motion picture screenplay and a breakthrough in his career. Less so for me. The idea was that the lead, Christian Slater, required a mentor. Christian’s straight character idolized Elvis to the point where he said, “If I had to f——a guy, I mean had to, if my life depended on it, I’d f——Elvis.”

  As it turned out, I was cast as Elvis. But not only was I not f——d, I was barely seen. In this film, Elvis’s face would never appear. And he was not to be called Elvis. His name was Mentor. Priscilla had given her tentative approval but ultimately pulled out because of the violence in the film. Though I dressed in Elvis costumes and assumed Elvis’s trademark twang, I only popped in for short, faceless appearances when Christian needed moral support. Would I have preferred to don my guitar, shake my pelvis, and break into “Blue Suede Shoes”? Hell yes. But a shadow Elvis is better than no Elvis at all. So I thank Tony Scott and remain grateful for the chance to play, in whatever form, the forever King.

  With Christian Slater in True Romance

  ALL & SIMPLE

  I’ll tell you a deep secret

  If you let me pull your pigtails

  OK then I used to climb in my daddy’s T-shirt

  Up to the tree-house eucalyptus

  And jump a little-boy air balloon but I’d land Jesus

  I’d jump with my little white arms stretched out wide

  And when I landed in the sand I’d be Jesus and love everyone &

  Everything the same all & simple every thought and every dream

  From my ugly math teacher to the tiny sunbeam glinting through the

  Eucalyptus feathers & I’d bless the bark & trunk and I’d have a

  Beard & long hair & take off my little-boy Jockey underwear &

  Climb again & jump clean and whole as Jesus years ago

  Jesus in my robe of Daddy’s underclothes

  Flying towards Damascus

  —Ware, England, 1987

  Eugene D. Kilmer

  It was 1993. I was in New Mexico pursuing what I then thought was my masterpiece, an African film called simply Africa that I intended to cowrite, produce, and direct. I was working with Bernard Pomerance, the poet and playwright whose credits included The Elephant Man. When it came to script conferences, Bernard was maniacally prompt. Knowing that, it was madness for me to take my daily horse ride, as I couldn’t possibly make it back on time. But I was obsessed lately with finding a trail that led to a peak I could see from my ranch. To my good and bad fortune, I discovered this trail I had long been searching for. I made the climb; dismounted CJ, a horse I adored more than anything I had ever owned; tied him off and took in the spectacular view; then, at the rim of a bowl, sat in prayer for my father, who was, after all, the man who had led me to New Mexico. Even now I could feel him mighty in the rocks and mighty in the clouds. Suddenly a bald eagle swooped down into the bowl and circled me without flapping, as if this was the very event I had long searched the trail for. I was flooded with feelings of fatherly love. But enough reflection! I mounted CJ and flew like the wind, arriving home in impossible time. When I say impossible, I mean it. It was not possible to make the first half of the climb, let alone my minutes of prayer and reflection and the visitation from the eagle then the descent, with such speed. Somehow my prayers had altered time, and not for the first time.

  Back at the ranch, I dismounted and did what one is never supposed to do: I put my CJ away without brushing him down. He was covered in sweat. Imagine being covered in fur then covered in sweat. You just can’t be brushed down after that. It’s like what I imagine being waterboarded is like to a human.

  That’s when I was told to call my brother by my usually frank secretary, who could not look me in the eye.

  I knew Dad was dead. The search for the trail to the peak made sense. The bowl on the other side made sense. It was the theater New Mexico had chosen to have that eagle either reflect or possess the spirit of my father and bid me farewell.

  * * *

  The next day I read the cold type of the Los Angeles Times account of my father’s life with every possible reaction. It was too matter-of-fact. It was not matter-of-fact at all. The facts were too terse. The facts were inaccurate. The facts didn’t matter. My father was a dreamer. He never stopped his wistful and wishful dreaming of new ideas about some business or activity. He was full of dichotomies, a rhythm I inherited. He’d secretly donated all of the land for Berkeley Hall’s new Mulholland campus, over one hundred acres with hilltop views. Yet, he would not get us two cans of tennis balls when they got to be a dollar a ball. (You can’t play tennis with three balls and establish a rhythm.) He never once in his life turned on a radio or played a record. He did sing songs from long ago when the only light at night was the glow of a campfire or a kerosene lamp. My father didn’t see a fence until he was nine. Now he was finally free.

  I silently saluted him and bade him farewell. I knew that, along with my mother, he had formed my heart. He and she had indoctrinated me into the faith of Christian Science, without which I would be lost. But without him, would I be lost? Or without him, would I, as a fatherless son, finally find myself? Or would it grieve me because, for all that was good and bad about my pioneering father, I loved him? Yes, I loved him. I love him still.

  FLAGSHIP BUSHMAN

  Man see flagship

  Man see hewn-away

  Petroglyphs on planets

  Near enough to touch

  Man from the first man

  Harmony in beautiful brutal nature

  Symphony of tones together

  System

  See true color

  Survival of the mischief

  That made the music man’s example

  Echo of bird, wind and wail

  Of unity within the veld

  Tranquility the decomposing

  Promise of life as

  Man see seasons man see flagship day

  Stay close to the permanent ambition

  Do not go away

  —Botswana, 1981

  The Kudu

  Africa is my escape, Africa is my home, Africa is the home of the human race, Africa is where fear meets faith and faith is found in the sheer beauty of God’s august creations. I was in southern Africa, near the border of Botswana, with my bosom buddy Bowen Boshier, African-born under a baobab tree to an Englishman who was among the continent’s greatest adventurers. Bowen’s dad was consumed by a burning love for Africa that brought him to the continent’s hardest, deepest, and most tender territory. Bowen himself is a brilliant artist whose disarmingly simple sketches capture the souls of wild animals, birds, bushes, and trees. His mother’s maiden name was van Gogh. That’s right—a direct relation to the great one. Bowen combines Hemingway and Kerouac. His mind is startlingly alert, rich and delirious with life lessons. In Africa, Bowen is my man.

  We were driving through the jungle in a Land Rover the dusty color of the Kalahari Desert. He took me to a bat cave filled with sleeping bats hanging upside down. They looked like dark fruit, ripened and ready to be plucked. Bowen brought out his sketchpad and went to work. I watched in wonder.

  Bowen Boshier

  Then it was back through the bush. The Land Rover made headway, although slowly. Bowen had deflated the tires to half their normal pressure in order to navigate the sandy road. Bowen knew what he was doing. But neither Bowen nor I could react in time to stop a kudu—an enormous antelope whose lethal horns were each three feet long—from crashing into our vehic
le. Just as I saw that we were about to be impaled and sent off to African heaven, Bowen swung into action. Forget Johnny Ringo or Doc Holliday. Forget Iceman and the Russian MiGs. This was life-and-death quicksilver maneuvering from a man who realized that the kudu had been compromised. The Land Rover had torn into his side, raising his fury. Seeing the kudu racing down the road, Bowen extracted the foot-long bowie knife from his utility belt and chased after the magnificent beast, leaving me in the Land Rover. Bowen wanted to put the animal out of its misery. Knowing Bowen had a pistol, I shouted, “Why don’t you shoot? You’ll never catch him!” But catch him he did. The kudu-Bowen battle was ferocious, Bowen finally able to leap on the kudu’s back like a calf roper and slash his windpipe. He later told me that he couldn’t get to his pistol, and besides, this was the most merciful way to do the job. Our Land Rover had been rendered inoperable. The kudu had kicked in the radiator. Bowen’s legs were torn to hell from running through the brambles. In grave despondence, we limped to a local motel. Bowen was devastated. He had killed a creature whom he respected and loved. He applied alcohol to his wounds. He downed a tumbler of whiskey. He had every right to get drunk. As far as I knew, he may have been drunk all day. I wasn’t sure. I asked him to get a quote on repairing our Landie, and then went to be alone in my quarters.

  So in this moment of confusion when fear was still fresh, what did I do? I did what any actor would do. I called my agent.

  “Where the hell have you been, Val? I’ve been trying to reach you for weeks.”

  “I’ve just seen a man kill a kudu with his bare hands. And before that, I spent the morning in a bat cave.”

  “Say that again, Val.”

  “I spent the morning in a bat cave.”

  “That’s too weird.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “They want you to play Batman.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. F——in’ Batman, Val.”

  “Is it a one-shot or a series?”

  “Three. They want you in the next three Batman movies.”

  “What’s the money like?”

  “By the third Batman, you’ll get ten million.”

  “Well, I’ll have to read the first one.”

  “Read it? Are you kidding, Val? Just do it.”

  That’s when I started laughing, coughing up Kalahari dust and feeling like I was in a trance.

  Was this all really happening? Had I been in a bat cave? Had Bowen slaughtered the kudu? Did Hollywood really want me in the rubber suit?

  Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

  Batman, but Forever?

  I was buzzed about being Batman but hardly for artistic reasons. I had also begun developing a feature film version of The Saint, a British spy TV show starring Roger Moore. My idea was to replace Moore in the movie and turn it into a franchise. With two franchises going—Batman and The Saint—I could start an artists’ community, write poetry and plays, and become the wild auteur I saw as my destiny.

  The truth is that Batman became a trap, and the trap was the suit—the slick, sexy, ridiculous leather-and-rubber slippery contraption that, in theory, transformed Bruce Wayne from man to god. It took an hour to get the thing off and on. That’s because Tim Burton’s vision for the earlier films had been that the dolphinlike suit be completely seamless. The current director felt obligated to use the same design. The suit was masterful, but once I was in it, I could barely move.

  If I dropped something I couldn’t pick it up. I could hardly see, could hardly hear, and sure as heckfire couldn’t react with any kind of bodily precision. I couldn’t really sit and could barely stand. The only way to get my bearings between takes was to lie in a chaise longue. You pushed your feet down and the whole thing magically reclined.

  The chair became my friend, my crush, and my only comfort. Oh, how I adored that chaise longue! It was in that wondrous piece of furniture that I experienced an epiphany. I was brought back to high school theater, where, playing old characters, I applied gobs of makeup and was often weighed down by heavy costumes. The result was that I moved like an eighty-year-old. Now the rubber suit was having the same effect. Here I was, supposedly the world’s most agile man, who could fly like a bat yet had to struggle to take two steps. In order to answer the call of nature, it took forty-five minutes to undo my suit.

  My costars were formidable: Two-Face was played by Tommy Lee Jones, already a friend from the southwest where he also owned a home; the Riddler was played by Jim Carrey, who was the hottest comedian on earth and easy to get along with; and Bruce Wayne’s love interest, the sexy psychologist Dr. Chase Meridian, was played by Nicole Kidman. I’ve always loved Australians—they’re frank and fun—and Nicole was perfect in the role. Unfortunately, there was a great deal of unspoken pain during the production. Jim’s dad had just died, and one of the first days of shooting he told us a tearful story about how a relative had walked up to him at the funeral with a headshot and asked for his autograph. I was still mourning my dad. We were a sad bunch of superheroes. Everyone’s emotions were raw. Our director, Joel Schumacher, brought kindness to spare. He was charming to strangers and family members (and especially gracious with my mother), and for the most part sensitive on set. But everyone has their tough days and there’s always super pressure with superhero films as they burn about 100,000 calories a day.

  The most fun during Batman was watching what seemed like half the Hollywood community bring their kids to see me in costume. As it turned out, one quick glimpse of Batman was enough. I always thought they needed something from the man in the suit. No way. Every single kid transformed into the Bat themselves. I could have been Betty White in there and they wouldn’t have minded a bit.

  As Batman

  Even my own son would come to be obsessed with Batman. But he couldn’t have cared less that I played Batman in a movie. Years later, I tried to watch Batman Forever with my family. My daughter, who was maybe five, had come to me while I was deep into my African screenplay and demanded that I prove to her brother that I, their father, was Batman—not him.

  “Daddy,” she said, “Jack is being such a nuisance and he won’t stop saying that he is Batman and not you. Can you please prove to him he is wrong?”

  “And how am I to do that?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, show him the movie?”

  Since we didn’t own a copy I had to purchase one in town. (No streaming back then, kids.) They stayed in the room for about twelve minutes and then quietly walked out. Like a chump, I sat and watched the entire rest of the film.

  Kids don’t want to play Batman. They want to be Batman. And the same with the fans. They don’t stay for the glamour. They stay for the truth of a man who struggles with good and evil, who switches from the profane to the sacred and takes it all in stride. The Hamlet who chooses to be.

  And what about the end product, the film itself?

  I mean, it’s so bad, it’s almost good.

  I regret the kitschiness, in a way, because the character himself is one of America’s great pop archetypes. Comic heroes resonate on visceral levels. Batman could be a character out of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. He contains his opposites. He’s good, he’s bad, he’s human, he’s a bat, he’s a buddy to Robin, he’s a lover to gorgeous gals, he’s in hiding, he’s out in the open, he’s vulnerable and he’s invulnerable, he’s solid and he’s flighty. Like so many superheroes, he’s able to extend the ordinary into the extraordinary and defy mortality. Born during the Great Depression eighty years ago, Batman has fired the imaginations of countless kids while raking in billions for the comic book and film industries. You gotta hand it to Batman. He’s far greater than any actor attempting to play him.

  Take the Heat

  Moviemaking is all about scheduling, logistics, and the mysteries of fate. In the last days of 1994, Warner Bros. changed course. The original plan—to take two years before starting the next Batman film—was scrapped. The studio was now insisting that they wanted back-to-back Batman films. Prepa
ration for the follow-up to Batman Forever, Batman and Robin, was to commence immediately. I just couldn’t. That’s because I had already committed to doing The Saint in London and had been asked to do Heat, which was in pre-production, while Batman Forever was still shooting. None of this made Joel Schumacher happy or inclined to speak favorably of me to the press. But I had to take the Heat.

  My agent at the time strongly recommended that I pass.

  “Are you kidding?” I asked.

  “Val, the pay is less than your per diem for Batman.”

  “But it’s Michael Mann directing. And it’s Pacino and De Niro. If I do the movie, I’ll get to call them Al and Bob for the rest of my life.”

  “Financially it makes no sense.”

  But I wasn’t thinking finances. I was thinking folklore. Oh, just to collect some deeply nuanced, joyous stories about the Godfather films! Just to be able to say “Al and Bob” for the rest of my life!

  Director Michael Mann asked how he could repay me, knowing he could never match my rate. I thought about how De Niro and Pacino had been in only one film together in thirty-five years but never shared a scene. And I thought, Hell, why not be on the poster, sandwiched right between them? A Hollywood tone poem that would stay with me the rest of my days. Mann agreed. And there I am, pictured below two acting beasts, both of whom were mighty motivators for me to become a beast myself.

  Rehearsals began. I drove up on weekends while shooting Batman; Bob flew in from Vegas, where he was shooting Casino. And Al was shooting Finding Richard, his documentary about creating the Shakespeare role he is married to, Richard III. The run-throughs were a little hair-raising for some cast members not used to live ammunition. I was used to it because even before I went to THE Juilliard School I had practiced with the weapons used in westerns, most commonly the Colt .45 six-shooter, meaning it held six bullets; the Winchester 73, the most powerful rifle that was used in securing the West for the white man; and of course the shotgun. My grandfather no doubt owned all three of these staples of the Wild West, and I practiced just like the western heroes of the silver screen before me—practiced quick-drawing, marksmanship, and, most important of all, gun safety on my father’s ranches, which, as he increased their sizes decade by decade, seemed a proper use of the rapidly developing land around Chatsworth, with McDonald’s on its way toward paving away all trace of natural grace and supplanting the valley with neon and automation and “progress.”