When my two buds and I first moved overseas, one of them often summarized our experiences by singing Top Gun‘s theme song, bursting out at inopportune moments: “Fly in-to the DAN-ger zone!” We also collectively held an odd fascination for the movie Willow during that first year, and of course, the only thing these two wildly different movies have in common is their ruggedly handsome (so the ladies say) supporting actor, Val Kilmer.

• Ice Man. (Top Gun)
• Mad Martigan. (Willow)
• “I’m your Huckleberry.” (Tombstone)
• Val Kilmer. (real life)

I don’t often read books by or about celebrities (the most recent being Confessions of a Prairie B*tch by Nellie from The Little House on the Prairie), but this one promised both to dredge up some happy memories and to answer some of my unimportant questions—I felt like I had to give it a go.

I listened to it on audio through the Libby app, and while I was happy with the production, I wasn’t quite sure why Will Forte read only like three of the many chapters. Was it a contractual error or intentional? Are he and Kilmer great friends in real life? Hard to say, but clearly, Val himself couldn’t record his own story by voice, since his battle with throat cancer has left his tongue oversized and his voice seriously gravely and slurred. The production, as it turns out, was excellent, handled by Will Forte (briefly), George Newbern (mostly), and Mare Winningham (poetically).

As a memoir, this book traces Kilmer’s memories of upbringing and entrance into theater before he landed some breakout roles in movies I’ve never seen. He discusses his early romance with Cher and Winningham herself, as well as his eventual marriage to, family with, and divorce from co-star Joanna Whalley, and a later fling with Carly Simon. Throughout his memoir, he shares not only personal stories but also personal messages to the people he’s loved and sometimes hurt. It’s a passionate book filled with love and, surprisingly, spirituality.

Val Kilmer is a lifelong Christian Scientist (he only briefly hints at its reputation as being an oddball cult that doesn’t believe in hospitals), a faith that expresses itself best in what he calls “divine love.” In fact it’s this love that he emphasizes so often that makes me think that his religion is nothing more than a spiritualized form of humanism: if everyone is God’s children and connected in spirit, and if the point of it all is that we let love rule, then it’s a powerfully works-based and others-focused proof of divine acceptance rather than a faith at all, and therefore highly humanistic. In fact, he only mentions God a handful of times in his discussions of the basis for his spirituality, and Jesus maybe twice? On the flip side, he mentions Mary Baker Eddy about 50 times (no joke), and praises her writings way more than Scripture. It’s pretty clear to me from these memoirs who the god of Christian Science really is.

But I digress. That’s mere rambling about a side issue in this book.

Of course, cults do sort of beg exposure, so it’s not really a side issue all! Christian Science is the thread that holds this man’s life together, that has given him hope through his defeat of esophageal cancer, and that continues to inform his poetry and art. Christian Science—as oddball a religion as it might be—has given this man’s life meaning. Christian Science has been to Val Kilmer throughout his six decades what the bonfire was to the moth in my yard last night: fascinating, brilliant, evocative, meaningful, damning.

I’m interested in watching more of Kilmer’s filmography, don’t get me wrong, yet I feel for the guy. Like so many trapped in the cultish offshoots of biblical Christianity, he’s been deceived by yet another form of humanistic philosophy, by another “doctrine of demons” (1Tim 4:1). He’s a lost soul, and his miraculous cure from throat cancer might very well be the final nail in his eternal coffin, as it seems to justify his core belief in physical healing, a Christian Science doctrine which trumps any need for genuine spiritual healing.

The Apostle Paul praised God for his thorn in the flesh, a physical ailment that kept him dependent upon the Christ who gave him strength. This Apostle who, through the power of God, could heal many others for the sake of the Gospel couldn’t heal himself, and he praised God for that inability! “For when I am weak, then am I strong,” he declared! Where’s this foundational biblical philosophy gone in Val Kilmer’s religion? How can he (and the millions of other who follow Christian Science or the Health-and-Wealth nonsense) be so deceived by the trappings of this world and life, missing entirely the realities of the eternity to come?

Clearly this book has got me thinking, so thank you, Mr. Kilmer, for that. I just pray that truly spiritual healing will take place during this period of your silence and mediation. I pray that the God of all comfort (1Cor 3:1-5) will first convince you of the truth of His Gospel (Eph 2:8-10), and that He will then keep your heart and mind (and soul) in Christ Jesus (Phil 4:7). Nothing could be greater.

I enjoyed this book, and I especially hope I can find some of Kilmer’s Mark Twain performances available online. The direction his career had taken before his bout with cancer was exciting and educational—and Bohemian. How grand it would be to see his tongue heal and his influence on the up-and-coming actors and artists continue, much as the older Marlon Brando had once so strongly influenced him.

©2021 E.T.