Few Westerns are as memorable as Tombstone. With a stellar cast, a phenomenal script, and some particularly great sequences that stick with you long after the credits roll, this Kurt Russell classic has been hailed as one of the best horse operas since the golden age of the genre. Perhaps what makes Tombstone stand out the most (aside from being based on one of the Old West's most iconic "true stories") is Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday, so it's no wonder that Russell gifted Kilmer something grand.
Kurt Russell Gifted Val Kilmer This Ironic Present After 'Tombstone'
According to Kurt Russell, it's often customary for actors to give each other gifts at the end of a long and tumultuous Hollywood production. While this isn't a necessity, it happens regularly among different casts. In a 2024 sit-down with GQ, covering the actor's multi-decade-long career, Russell recalled finding the perfect present for Val Kilmer at the end of Tombstone's production. Having framed it with Kilmer's holster, gun, and hat, Russell bought Kilmer his own burial plot at the Boothill Graveyard in the real Tombstone, Arizona. As one of Tombstone's most popular tourist attractions, Kilmer's plot marked the end of his time as Doc Holliday, a character who succumbs to his own battle with tuberculosis at the end of the film.
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More than that, Tombstone had a notoriously grueling production that was incredibly difficult for the actors involved. It was so difficult that many have come to believe that Russell ended up essentially directing the picture himself. Given that, a grave marker was probably the perfect gift to signify that shooting the film was finally at an end, and the cast — and Kilmer in particular, who gave the performance of a lifetime — could finally rest easy. But what's even funnier about Russell's gift is that Kilmer had a similar idea of his own.
Val Kilmer's Gift to Kurt Russell After 'Tombstone' Also Had a Deep Meaning
"What I had gotten Val was a plot at Boothill," Russell recalled. "What Val had gotten me was an acre of land overlooking Boothill." To Russell, this spoke deeply to the fact that these two had effectively become their respective characters over the course of filming Tombstone. Val Kilmer's Doc Holliday was always obsessed with death, staring it in the face any chance he got. Despite "living by the sword," he didn't die in a gun battle against Johnny Ringo (Michael Biehn), but rather a sickness that weakened him. In the case of Kurt Russell's Wyatt Earp, he was a man always wanting to experience the fullness of life, which led to his affair with Dana Delaney's Josephine Marcus as well as the Earp family's move to Tombstone in the first place.
"Doc Holliday's all about death," Russell concluded. "But Wyatt's all about life. It's in that last scene, [they] just look at each other and went, well, I guess that pretty much says it all." There are few Westerns that offer as much perspective on individual characters like Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday as Tombstone. Kevin Costner's Wyatt Earp tried, but it just doesn't compare. More to the point, Tombstone's raw performances, particularly from these Hollywood legends, is what elevates the picture to true greatness. It's hard to top a Western with as much spirit and personality as this 1993 film, and it seems as if Russell and Kilmer both knew they had something special on their hands. Today, Tombstone is still considered one of the greatest Westerns ever made, and we wouldn't have it any other way.
Val Kilmer Is the True Star of 'Tombstone'
But why is Tombstone so widely regarded? Well, Kurt Russell certainly had a hand in it, as did the rest of the cast and crew, but there’s little doubt that it's Val Kilmer who really steals the show. As Doc Holliday continues to decline physically in health, Kilmer emphasizes his steady pull towards violence. Doc has a death wish, not unlike his cowboy counterpart Ringo, but he’s too quick a draw to go down in a blaze of glory. Even though he faces off against Michael Biehn’s notorious outlaw, arriving at the scene struggling even to be there (though masterfully hiding his weakness), this isn’t where he dies, and there’s power in an ending like that.
Throughout the whole film, Kilmer flips the usual gunslinger tropes on their head. While most Gregory Peck or Gary Cooper-style gunmen are strait-laced heroes (despite being either of the law or against it), Kilmer’s Doc Holliday flips the script. He’s the most talented gunman of the Tombstone bunch, but he’s also something of a degenerate. Public intoxication, wild threats, and disease all set Doc apart as a tragic figure, but he doesn’t let anyone have the chance to feel sorry for him. Just as Wyatt Earp himself is a complicated picture of a lawman, especially when compared to his brother Virgil (Sam Elliott), Doc isn’t the usual portrayal of a gunslinger, and that’s largely why it works.
As Russell noted, Doc Holliday is obsessed with death. That’s not something most Western heroes have, though they’re plagued by the deaths that trail them. But Doc isn’t like most Western heroes, which is why we love him. Kilmer’s exceptional performance here marked a role of a lifetime. Very few Western roles come close to this sort of greatness and complexity, nor do many take the time to paint the Old West with such authentic and elaborate characters. Doc Holliday is one of a kind, and so Kilmer’s performance had to be the same. It’s no wonder then that both Russell and Kilmer thought they’d found something special on Tombstone, which only makes their gifts to one another all the better.
Tombstone
R
Drama
History
Western
Biography
A successful lawman's plans to retire anonymously in Tombstone, Arizona are disrupted by the kind of outlaws he was famous for eliminating.
- Release Date
- December 25, 1993
- Director
- George P. Cosmatos , Kevin Jarre
- Cast
- Kurt Russell , Val Kilmer , Sam Elliott , Bill Paxton , Powers Boothe , Michael Biehn
- Runtime
- 130 minutes
- Writers
- Kevin Jarre
Tombstone is available to watch on Paramount+ in the U.S.
