GROSS OBIT - Val Kilmer - the fundamental unit
If there has to be an absolute standard for movie fame…
Val Kilmer, 1959—2025
I propose that we name the fundamental unit of Hollywood celebrity the Kilmer. You know, like the Kilogram or the Kelvin, only for movie fame.
Val Kilmer himself, of course, being the standard, has - and always will have - an exact and invariant one Kilmer (1Klr) of Hollywood celebrity. All the other movie stars are measured against him.
But why Kilmer for our standard measure? Well, it’s obvious: you couldn’t use a Ryan Gosling or a Meryl Streep or a Zendaya because they’d overwhelm the device, cause it to short-circuit with all that untroubled brilliance. And if you picked anyone from the exalted top end of the biz it would obviously make the rest of the stars look bad, with their teeny-tiny fractional scores against the standard measure. To calibrate this right you need a middling star who’s a phenomenal supporting actor, wildly good-looking, a massive pain to work with and too weird for the Oscars. You need a Kilmer.
Confirmation: Kilmer as Chris in Heat, terribly wounded but still devotedly on the team. He wedges himself into the car and drives over to Charlene’s place. It’s spine-tingling - about a minute of supporting-cast electricity - deadly serious movie acting, absolute commitment to the craft. Classic Kilmer.
A pain to work with? “I will never climb Mount Everest and I will never work with Val Kilmer again. There isn’t enough money in the world…” - John Frankenheimer, who directed Kilmer in The Island of Doctor Moreau (and Brando (7Klr) was in that one too - can he really have been easier to work with than Kilmer?).