Of all the actors who played Wyatt Earp on screen, a mustachioed Kurt Russell in Tombstone (1993) comes closest in appearance to the real Wyatt Earp; the resemblance is uncanny when one compares Russell in the film and the real life photographs of Earp taken at the time of his activities in the town of Tombstone, even though Age wise, Russell, who was 42 at the time of making this film, was far older than Earp who was 33 at the time of the famous Gunfight near the OK corral.
And after watching the movie, i have to say that that’s were most of the similarity ends, because Wyatt Earp in Tombstone, is less the Earp that a lot of history and revisionist history books teach us, and more of the grand ‘Western’ genre archetype : The noble, reluctant gunslinger, who hang up his spurs to live in peace, but is pulled back into the world of violence; Think of Gary Cooper in High Noon (1952).
Kurt Russell may lack the stature and towering presence of such legendary Western stars as John Wayne or Cooper, but he makes up for it with his sincerity, his commanding voice and dialogue delivery, his spontaneous acing style and an innate starry aura that he possesses – maybe due to the fact that there aren’t many stars like him, with the major exception of Elizabeth Taylor, who has had such a long run of stardom since their childhood – that allows him to project cool machismo effortlessly.
In direct contrast to Russell’s Wyatt Earp stands Val Kilmer’s Doc Holliday. Kilmer, who was 33 when he did the film, and is much closer in age to the real Holliday (who was 30) immerses himself into the role with such intensity, that all traces of Kilmer disappears; Kilmer’s Holliday is forever drunk and forever feverish, with red eyes and a ghostly white face – perfectly representing a man who is dying of tuberculosis.
He acquired the mannerisms and dressing style of an effete dandy, and has given himself an aristocratic southern accent that adds authenticity to his portrayal (Holliday was from Georgia). Kilmer walks a tight rope between brilliant character acting and a burlesque caricature, bringing to mind some truly bizarre, yet undeniably potent performances of Kilmer’s idol Marlon Brando.
So intense was Kilmer’s method acting preparation for this film, that for his death scene he slept on a bed of ice to generate the shivering effect- something that Brando also did for his death scene in Mutiny on the Bounty. By the way, it was Brando who told Kilmer ” that at some point every film actor must make a Western“. When Kilmer asked him why, he answered with his famous half smile and the words, “You know damn well why.”
Kilmer later deduced that Brando’s “why” has to do with basic Americanism. One way or the other, Americans have to deal with the West and its glorious, sordid, and sadistic past. So when Kilmer was presented with the chance to play Holliday, he grabbed it with both hands. Kilmer plays Holliday as a 19th century frontier rockstar; He dances, rather than walks, and sings his dialogues rather than speaking them; it’s like he is channeling Jim Morrison – whom he played in Oliver Stone’s biopic on the iconic singer; his dialogues in the film like “I’m your Huckleberry” has become legendary; the line has an (unintentional) echo of Huckleberry Finn, Kilmer’s favorite novel and character, though Kilmer had only intended it to mean “I’m your man.
You’ve met your match.” Kilmer intended the character’s wit to surpass even his skills with the pistol; his wit and his drunkenness is his open act of defiance in the face of death. It goes without saying, that with this courageous performance Kilmer not only elevates this film by several notches, but also leaves every past portrayal of Doc Holliday in the dust. Both Russell and Kilmer were very good friends in real life and their chemistry spills over into the film.
They work beautifully together, and are very successful in making us believe why Earp and Holliday were such great pals who would lay down their lives for each other. Beyond these two stars, the film is populated with who’s who of the macho star brigade : the born to be movie cowboy Sam Elliot plays Virgil Earp, Bill Paxton plays the naïve, misguided Morgan Earp, and there are Powers Boothe, Michael Biehn, Thomas Haden Church, Stephen Lang, Jason Priestley, Billy Zane, etc. … topped out by legendary Charlton Heston, with Robert Mitchum providing the narration. As it is obvious from the cast, the film is an ultimate ‘guy’ film. The film does has its fair share of female characters, but the emphasis is on the relationship between male characters; their camaraderie and their rivalry; the film is full of truly masculine moments where guys bond with each other, stare down each other, talk down each other and gun down each other.