Actor, poet, artist, singer, community activist, father.

----Born New Year's Eve 1959 in Los Angeles, California, to Eugene and Gladys Kilmer, Val's early life was spent with his older brother Mark and younger brother Wesley on the ranch once owned by the cowboy legend Roy Rogers.

----Val caught the acting bug early as the Kilmer boys often spent their summer vacations entertaining visitors of the guest ranch his parents once owned in Arizona. After filming his first TV commercial at age 12 for a fast food company, Val pursued his acting dream, first at Chatsworth High School

(with fellow classmates Kevin Spacey & Mare Winningham), then for senior year, the Hollywood Professional School.
He completed his formal training at the Juilliard School of Performing Arts, where, at age 17, Kilmer was the youngest student ever admitted to the Drama department.

----After spending some time perfecting his skills on New York stages with notable performances in How it All Began (a production he co-wrote with Julliard classmates), and The Slab Boys (with future stars Sean Penn & Kevin Bacon), Kilmer got his first film role in the comedy spoof Top Secret! in 1984. The next few years were a mix of feature films and tv specials, gaining attention in 1986's Top Gun and 1988's Willow.

----But it was Val's eerily dead-on portrayal as doomed rock star Jim Morrison for director Oliver Stone's The Doors (1991) and his tubercular dandy Doc Holliday in Tombstone (1993) which solidified his place in Hollywood's A-list.

Meet Derek, Val Kilmer's Biggest Fan