Val had no doubt in his mind that he wasn't going to succeed in a nine to five job. And he believed that becoming an actor would not only help him get the girls, but it would also pay for his mode of transportation, "I was going to have to do something if I wanted a car. And I found out you could get paid to act. I was going to movies and watching TV, going to the theater a little bit. It was, like, ‘Wow, you could make a living doing this? Great! What could be better?’ I started acting haphazardly without a lot of discipline," he said, "but I read a lot of books and studied Shakespeare."

Reportedly, as a way to overcome his shyness, Val sought parts in the school plays. On his list of credits are the parts of a professor in The Mouse That Roared and Scrooge in a musical version of the holiday classic, A Christmas Carol. At age 12, Val impressed a visiting agent who caught one of his performances, with his ability for intense concentration on stage. Soon sent out for a hamburger commercial, the reputation for being difficult began. "But I don’t like hamburgers," he would tell his agent. "I was a junior method actor," Val said. "If I didn’t enjoy the hamburger, it was a problem. I guess I didn’t mind telling the people who were doing the commercials."

His promising career continued at Chatsworth High School, where he often shared the stage and star billing with Mare Winningham, whom he dated for three years. Mare achieved her own successful acting career, as has fellow Chatsworth classmates, Kevin Spacey and Michelle Pfeiffer. Kilmer found poetic inspiration in Pfeiffer when they later became romantically involved.

Admittedly not a good student, "I had trouble with tests. I’m spiritually dyslexic: if I’m interested in something, I can remember it forever; if not, I have to find a trick", Val’s primary interest was acting. "People told me that the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts was the best place to learn, so I went off to England, hoping to enroll. Unfortunately, I was only 15 at the time, and too young. So I came back home and finished high school." With the encouragement of high school drama teacher Bob Corelli, Val auditioned for The Juilliard School in New York. "Everyone I knew said, ‘you won’t. So think about Carnegie and the Pasadena Playhouse.’ But I got into Juilliard.…."

His plan for getting himself accepted to the most prestigious performing arts school in the world, involved nothing short of sheer bravery and a clear vision of what would gain him the most positive attention from the panel of judges. "I wrote my own piece because I couldn’t find anything that would be fresh," he said. Knowing they would be facing the recitations of countless tired renditions of "Isben, O’Neill, Shakespeare, and Brecht," Kilmer intrigued them with "passionately delivered lines he had the guts and talent to pen himself." He became, at 17, and remains, the youngest student ever admitted to the drama department.

At his mother’s home in Pittsburgh, where Val was visiting on his way to Juilliard, the family received the devastating news of Wesley’s death. "I had desperation about that hurt" Val is quoted as saying, "but I was helping my mom, who was completely shattered. The first solid, pure grief came while flying back to California for the funeral. It was a sense of loss, because he was so gifted, an absolutely world-class talent."

"I think there can be a hole in your life when someone you love dies, but it doesn’t have to damage you. The opportunity I took from my little brother’s passing was to see that all the talents and qualities contained in his unique body existed in the world. My testimony as to what he meant to me was to try to find those qualities in myself, to respect them and hallow them in the way I do him."

"The understanding he gave me about art and life was truly a gift." Val spoke also of using the pain of his brother’s death to gain a greater understanding of life. "But I didn’t become somebody else because Wesley died. Instead, I saw really clearly what the impact of a life could be. Without the confrontation of death, you can’t really comprehend how life is love, and love is life…"

Starting Juilliard a week after Wesley’s death, Val recalled the "immediate challenge" he faced in keeping Juilliard’s exhausting schedule during this time of grief. As he said, "It took a lot of work, but some good came out of it: I learned that those qualities I had of my brother’s were not lost. I was able to find them and respect them." Freely admitting how he came to choose his field of training, Val tells us of how it was an appropriate choice for that time of suffering, "I was a real snob. I was interested in classical theater simply because it was the hardest thing to do. It was a very good thing for me, because the school was very tough. It was a place to make sense of my brother’s death, to apply it to my life. That is the only value those of us living can take out of someone passing."

Juilliard teacher, Michael Kahn, recalls, "Val stood out as someone you knew would find work. His talent was natural and enormous, and his dedication was so much fiercer than the average student’s. With his looks, you just knew he’d be that one of 97 or so who’d get jobs." Ultimately earning his Bachelor degree, "with the dubious honor of three years on probation," Val concentrated his studies in classical theater, acting in many Greek tragedies and Shakespearean plays, including MacBeth and Richard III.

A play Val co-wrote and starred in while in college, How It All Began, about a German ex-terrorist, made such an impression on Broadway producer, Joseph Papp, that he mounted a production at his Papp’s Public Theater in New York. Seeking to firmly ground his experience in the theater, after graduation Val worked hard to perfect his craft, acting in such productions as Henry IV, Part I in Central Park and As You Like It at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. Finally, he made his off Broadway debut in John Byrne’s The Slab Boys co-starring the also aspiring Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn. The New York Times critic reviewed his performance as having, "Fine, firm, shading."

The Slab Boys had a short run, but it caught the notice of numerous producers and casting agents. "At one point," Kilmer recalls, "Kevin, Sean and I were all up for the same roles in two different films." Though Kilmer lost out for roles in both Footloose and Racing With The Moon, he was soon to be given his big movie break, but first...

…in his first work for television in 1983, Val starred in the ABC After School Special, One Too Many, a drama emphasizing the tragic consequences of teenage drinking. His co-stars were former classmates Michelle Pfeiffer and Mare Winningham. Val said of that experience, "(I) got all kinds of letters from kids, powerful stuff. It made me feel good about what I do." However, "Never more than a caricature suburban rebel," Val’s portrayal of Eric hardly foreshadows the astounding and critically acclaimed performances he was later to give as two of history’s most famous drunks, Jim Morrison in the Doors and as Doc Holliday in Tombstone.

In 1984, Val was awarded the starring role in his first feature film, the comic spoof of World War II and Elvis Presley movies, Top Secret! Directed by Jim Abrahams and the zany Zucker Brothers, David and Jerry, of Airplane! fame, Val played an American rock star who tangles with the East German high command and joins forces with a flavorful band of freedom fighters for the French Resistance. The only information Kilmer had been given about his character before his audition was that Nick Rivers was a combination of Elvis, James Dean and Marlon Brando. When audition time arrived, Kilmer said, "I showed up dressed like Elvis, my hair like James Dean and acting like Marlon, and once I got in, I refused to break character, which I guess they liked." In further preparation for the role, once hired, Kilmer also watched footage of 1950’s singers Gene Vincent and Paul Anka.

It was during this film that Val established his reputation in Hollywood of being a demanding actor. According to Abrahams, "We would all butt heads when we couldn’t define a motivation for his character, he wanted to know who Nick Rivers was and why he would say things, and in the context of a parody, you think, ‘Is it really so important?’" Val, who even then was sorting it out, presented us with a fascinating Nick Rivers, an enchanting combination of sexuality and boyish wholesomeness." When compared to the team’s earlier work, Top Secret! hardly caused a ripple blanc at the box office. However, Kilmer himself received mostly good reviews: "Kilmer becomes delightfully animated when performing," and, "Kilmer may also have a future in music, if his remarkably self-assured song-and-dance numbers in Top Secret! are any indication." Top Secret! has proven to be one of the most popular comedies on video and of cable and satellite TV. In addition to the usual Soundtrack album, a "mini-LP" was released under the name of Nick Rivers featuring Kilmer’s vocals.

Part III Coming Soon!