Val Kilmer not only had high-profile relationships with Cher, Cindy Crawford and Daryl Hannah, but in his new memoir, “I’m Your Huckleberry,” he details his little-publicized romance with Ellen Barkin.
The 63-year-old actor writes that he unexpectedly fell for Bronx-born Barkin, 66, who he describes as having “the best smile in all five boroughs.”
“I remember her wit, her sultry eyes, but mostly her laugh,” Kilmer recounted of his short-lived ’80s relationship. “And her hair. Who remembers the softness of a woman’s hair? If you ever have a chance to consensually ever so gently touch Ellen’s hair, it will be worth the look she’s gonna drop on you.”
Kilmer says that the pair enjoyed months of “window-shopping on Rodeo Drive by day and barbecuing at night,” adding that she was “one of the enchantresses who got away, no doubt due to my unmanageable preoccupations, my neglect.”
The “Tombstone” actor also wrote of his intense friendship with Michelle Pfeiffer in the ’80s, who he met through her ex-husband Peter Horton. He said he felt comfortable discussing his sometimes strained relationship with his parents and Pfeiffer, in turn, unburdened herself to Kilmer over her rocky marriage to Horton
“The secret pain that Michelle and I shared created an intimacy between us,” he wrote, also noting that he nursed an “all-consuming crush” on Pfeiffer’s younger sister Dee Dee Pfeiffer, who “did not seem to reciprocate, even a little. In fact, she seemed to not even know I existed.”
Additionally, he wrote of meeting Carly Simon at the New York premiere of “Top Gun” in 1986 and going to her Upper West Side home a week later.
“We talked all day about everything under the sun,” he wrote. “We talked about shyness. We talked about Harry Nilsson. We talked about Bob Dylan and the evils of yellow journalism and the exquisite phrasing of Frank Sinatra. We talked and talked and talked. We had dinner.”
The “You’re So Vain” singer invited Kilmer to stay over in her guest room. The next morning he was awakened by a tray of organic eggs and jams, which he said was the “best breakfast of all time.”
“I wanted to be with Carly every day of the rest of my life…. She had utter power over me… Our friendship flowered.
“I think the reason we soon stopped seeing each other was her realization that it was too overwhelming for me. Her shy sensitivity saw through my soul. She saw that I was madly, hopelessly in love with her. I’m not sure I ever spoke those words, but you must have known, Carly.”