The Death of Val Kilmer and the Power of Doc Holliday

There is no more indelible character in modern film than Doc Holliday in Tombstone. This is a big statement, I know—but I stand by it. As portrayed by Val Kilmer in the 1993 film, Doc Holliday is simply unforgettable. It is appropriate to revisit this film, and this performance, in light of Kilmer’s death this week (1959-2025). (The film, by the way, has some objectionable content, and should be watched with discernment.)

In cinematic history, there is no one quite like Kilmer’s Doc. Holliday was a real man, and his wild eyes in his existing portraits tell us that he lived life hard. Even in a still photo, Doc looks like a man in motion, half-mad and wholly dangerous. So too in Tombstone. As incarnated by the Shakespearean Kilmer, Doc was indeed uncouth, tragic, heroic, comedic, loyal, and not to be messed with.

Doc was many-sided. So too was Kilmer. For this reason, when Kilmer absorbed Doc into the many layers of his acting genius, Kilmer did not only steal Tombstone, but essentially rewired the entire film around Doc. Yet Kilmer did not receive his flowers upon the film’s release in 1993. Kilmer controversially did not get even an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

How Kilmer could go unrewarded for Tombstone is a mystery for the ages. It was not just that Kilmer channeled the mercurial Doc Holliday; it was also that the long-forgotten screenwriter Kevin Jarre gifted Kilmer a script shimmering with intricate pithiness, deep pathos, and the kind of big themes that the most talented actors search for all their careers.

Kilmer knew he had struck gold with Tombstone. He was made for a complex man like Holliday. His own life was difficult. After his younger brother died in a swimming accident, it took Kilmer years to recover from this event, as he recounted in Val (2021). In reality, I’m not sure that Kilmer ever recovered from this crisis. He practiced Christian Science, and may well have done so because it offered the ability to transcend the pain Kilmer knew all too well.

In his craft, Kilmer was a character actor mistaken for a Hollywood heartthrob. It is true that Kilmer’s handsomeness, mustache, straight posture, wide shoulders, and panther-like physicality are all key elements of Doc’s mystique. But Kilmer was not a pretty boy; he was a very complicated man. In this respect, Kilmer and Doc were made for one another.

Like many of the best figures in literature and film, Doc is two-sided. He is a quintessential Southern gentleman, exhibiting aristocractic manners and genteel sensibilities. He plays Chopin and speaks fluent Latin. Yet Doc is as rough as he is refined. He is elegantly attired, wearing waistcoats and duster jackets with panache, yet he simultaneously cuts a gritty figure. Doc sweats profusely. He coughs constantly, for he suffers from tuberculosis. Doc is both very strong and very weak.

Doc is also fearless. Tombstone regularly finds him at a gambler’s table, but in his existence he is playing a much bigger game, the game of death. Aside from his illness, his foremost antagonist in this contest is the Cowboy Johnny Ringo. Ringo, we are meant to understand, is Doc’s mirror-image. Both men are master gunmen.

Yet despite Ringo’s skill with a pistol, he instinctually shrinks back from Doc. Ringo knows that he is great at killing, but Doc is greater. Doc is something more than a fearless gunfighter, in truth. Ringo is a man of violence, but Doc is an angel of death. Ringo’s blood heats up at the prospect of a gunfight; Doc’s blood cools at the same. The subtle contrast of these two men is a marvelous element of Tombstone, and the actor playing Ringo, Michael Biehn, excels at conveying a sense of hot-tempered bewilderment in Doc’s presence.

Doc’s fraught encounters with Ringo reveal the development of a textured morality in Doc. This metamorphosis is a key piece of Tombstone. When we meet him, Doc is a profligate man, unmarried to his girlfriend, and not unwilling to stab a man over a card game. Doc restlessly roams the earth and lives in the wilderness, far from the grace of God. But as the film goes on and the Cowboys terrorize Tombstone and kill Wyatt Earp’s brother Morgan, Doc quietly changes.

We see this nuanced transformation play out in the film’s second half. Earp, masterfully portrayed by Kurt Russell in an iconic performance, exacts revenge on the Cowboys for his brother’s death, killing one after another. But this vendetta is destined to falter with one man: Johnny Ringo. Earp is very skilled in combat, but Ringo is his better. Earp knows it; Ringo knows it; most importantly, Doc knows it.

In the end, this is what cements Doc as an indelible character. In the closing moments of Tombstone, Doc rises from his deathbed to save Wyatt’s life, and joins Ringo in battle. This is the realization of one of Jarre’s key plot threads, as Doc answers the call for his friend when Wyatt is in dire straits.

Doc has done this throughout Tombstone. For example, when Ringo drunkenly confronts Wyatt on the city streets, Doc collects himself from a barber’s chair, strides into the frame, and takes total command of the moment. “Play for blood!” he barks at Johnny Ringo, inviting Ringo into his mad game. Ringo, baying threats, stops in his tracks.

This mirrors the closing showdown between Doc and Ringo. Doc, as I am at pains to say, is no longer just a gunman. He has become an agent of vengeance. The man who only respects the law when it suits him has become the moral law, the unbending line between right and wrong in the cosmos that cuts through every person’s heart. As you sow, so shall you reap.

We saw Doc take on this role not long before in Tombstone. Entering the war against the Cowboys, Doc was hastily sworn in as a lawman by Wyatt. In the film, this is not simply a plot detail based on actual history; it is a tell. Jarre means us to read it as a sign of who Doc has become. Doc is no longer an outlaw; Doc has become very justice itself.

Ringo sowed to the wind, and now he reaps the whirlwind, dying from a single shot. It was long foretold in Tombstone. Ringo’s introduction in the film, we recall, features him quoting Revelation 6:8, which reads: “Behold a pale horse, and the man who sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.” In Tombstone, Wyatt fills this role. But so does Doc. In Tombstone, as the narrative unfolds, Doc becomes the angel of death.

Doc also becomes a substitute savior. He takes Wyatt’s place in the duel against Ringo, stepping in because he knows that only he can destroy the one who has the power of death over Wyatt. Doc does so because he loves Wyatt. He cannot voice his friendly affection, however. When Wyatt comes to visit Doc as Doc’s life ebbs in a hospital, Doc asks Wyatt to leave. This scene is powerful, even heartbreaking, and Kilmer laces it with humor, restraint, and deep sadness. The bond of these men is stronger than life.

Tombstone is a deceptively profound movie. People rightly love it for many reasons: the quotable lines, the period scenery, the excellent cast, the humor, the hearkening back to an era of strong manhood and untamed adventure. But Kilmer is the true secret to the film—or, to put it differently, Doc is the true secret to the film. (The two are essentially one, the character and the actor.)

In technical theological terms, Doc exemplifies the biblical atonement doctrine of Christus Victor, a doctrine I believe is the logical consequence of penal substitution (Genesis 3:15; Romans 16:20; Col. 2:13-15). By killing Ringo, Doc triumphs over Wyatt’s oppressor, freeing Wyatt from certain death. This man who lived for himself, leaving no sin unsampled, closes his life with a heroic and deeply selfless act.

Kilmer’s performance is, in the final analysis, indelible. It is sui generis—one of a kind, truly the work of a lifetime, a lifetime that is sadly over. Val Kilmer is dead; we will not see his like again. But as long as there are screens, his portrayal of Doc Holliday will still speak.

This character speaks to us so powerfully, ultimately, because Doc Holliday in Tombstone is a figure of deep theological resonance. At just the right time, our friend Jesus Christ came, called out our terrible foe, a spiritual specter we could never defeat by our own power, and overcame Satan by his death on a Roman cross. Greater love has no man than this, we remember, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

In Doc Holliday, we get a picture—just a fleeting common-grace glimpse—of this Christological truth.