VAL KILMER

Raised in the shadow of the Roy Rogers ranch in Chatsworth, California, Kilmer excelled at acting, singing, and writing during his years at Chatsworth High (he also dated classmate and future actress Mare Winningham for three years). At the age of seventeen, he became the youngest student to be accepted into Julliard's acting program. During his years there, he played the lead role in an off-Broadway production of How It All Began, a play he co-scripted with some classmates. One year later, he made his Broadway debut in Slab Boys, alongside Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn, who were then little more than struggling newcomers themselves. 5555

The leap from the stage to the silver screen came in 1984, when Kilmer both acted and sang in the spy-movie parody Top Secret!. This otherwise unremarkable career turn led to a brief stint in a London production of The Genius, during which a pretty British actress caught his eye. Nothing came of it. Years passed. Then Kilmer won a role in the Ron Howard-George Lucas fantasy Willow; he played a sword-swinging, tough-as-nails rogue who uses bad poetry to seduce a sword-swinging, tough-as-nails princess played by Joanne Whalley. From their first meeting on the set, Kilmer became utterly smitten with his co-star, and he cranked up the charm for a seven-month marathon courtship. Whalley eventually succumbed, and the two were married in 1989. According to Kilmer, he realized only after their wedding that Whalley was the very same actress he had spotted all those years before in London. 5555

Although Kilmer's early roles earned him a reputation as a competent performer, the world at large might never have paid him any notice were it not for his portrayal of Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's The Doors. He pursued the role with his characteristic zeal; he actively lobbied director Stone for an audition and then spent six months preparing for it by losing weight, growing out his hair, memorizing the words to every song Morrison ever recorded, and living every waking hour in boots and leather pants. After landing the part, Kilmer cut a demo tape to convince the director that he should not only act the part, but sing the songs as well. By the time filming began, Kilmer had immersed himself so thoroughly in Morrisonisms that original members of the Doors claimed they couldn't tell Kilmer from the original article, and the final cut of the movie contained a seamless blending of Kilmer's vocals and Morrison's original recordings. The Doors was a financial disappointment, but Kilmer won notice as one of the most talented actors of his generation. 5555

Kilmer's next four films provided solid evidence of his dramatic range--he played a part-Sioux F.B.I. agent, the ghost of Elvis, a bank robber, and Old West gunfighter Doc Holliday (a performance, in Tombstone, that many critics felt should have been Oscar-nominated)--but his name above the title netted a modest draw at best. Understandably, Kilmer jumped at the chance to inherit the bat suit from a disgruntled Michael Keaton--an offer made to him, legend has it, while he was touring bat caves in Botswana, Africa. With the power of the Batman film franchise propelling him, Kilmer finally landed at the top of the box office in a leading role, and he held his own admirably against scene-stealing co-stars Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones. 5555

Overnight celebrity brought both perks and pitfalls. Kilmer landed a plum supporting role in Heat, wherein he got to strut his stuff opposite Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, and New Line snapped him up to revive its flagging attempt to remake The Island of Dr. Moreau. At the same time, his fiery artistic temperament and numerous creative disputes became the focus of every interview he granted. Tabloid scoop-mongers invaded his quiet home life on the outskirts of Santa Fe, hounding him about his separation from Whalley in July of 1995, shortly after the birth of their second child. A tryst with supermodel Cindy Crawford (following a failed attempt at reconciliation with Whalley) did little to help his image or his unravelling marriage, and Kilmer and Whalley slogged through a messy divorce eight months after their initial separation. 5555

By his own account, Kilmer declined to suit up for Batman and Robin due to other commitments, but director Joel Schumacher claims the star was dumped. Kilmer's future still looks rosy, though: he hopes to have launched a lucrative film franchise as upstanding private eye Simon Templar with the release of The Saint. 1998 delivered assignments in DreamWorks' animated film The Prince of Egypt (in which he provided the voice of Moses) and the romantic drama At First Sight, the story of a man blind since birth who undergoes an experimental operation that restores his sight. Kilmer has also written a screenplay based on the noir-ish novel The Killer Inside Me, which he hopes to direct and produce; and his performance as Dr. Dark in the indie film Dead Girl, a project that has been moldering on the shelf since 1994, may yet see the light of day now that Kilmer and co-star Teri Hatcher are big names.