In playing him, I thought of what my dear friend the great screenplay writer Robert Towne had taught me: all insightful dialogue comes out of situations, not predeveloped thought. Throughout the drama, he’s dying of both drink and tuberculosis. His tongue is more lethal than his pistol. His greatest retribution for this loss was his caustic wit. In trying to understand the character of Doc Holliday, it’s important to remember he’s a fallen aristocrat, frustrated by his inability to express his authentic self. By the way, despite some fans’ contention that in the 1800s the handles of caskets were called huckles and thus the word huckle bearer was a term for pall bearer, I do not say, “I’m your huckle bearer.” I say, “I’m your huckleberry,” connotating, “I’m your man. I speak it before shooting to death the fearsome Johnny Ringo, played by Michael Biehn. I also realize that the line that I, playing the diseased Doc Holliday, articulated has become iconic. I like the unintentional echo of Huckleberry Finn, which is my favorite novel and features my favorite character. I’ve entitled this tome I’m Your Huckleberry for many reasons. That’s why when I had the chance to play Doc Holliday, I grabbed it. I could never give up the chance to play such a character. The archetype of the gunslinger, played with a naturalism that only Brando could invoke, is ever present. We continue killing ourselves in unconscionable ways. We learn everything from Westerns and yet learn nothing from them. Even today, this gun-obsessed nation that we love remains enmired in a dilemma centered on pistols and rifles with romantic ties to our murderous past. We fought lawlessness to create an even more lawless law, one that excused and perpetuated genocide. Marlon knew that the West represents both our territorial salvation and our mortal sin, our gain and our greed. One way or the other, Americans have to deal with the West and its glorious, sordid, and sadistic past. I presume the why has to do with basic Americanism. When I asked him why, he answered with his famous half smile and the words, “You know damn well why.” When I was an adult and Brando’s friend, he told me that at some point every film actor must make a Western. In thinking about the role, I may have had in mind Brando’s Kid Rio, the hero of the only movie Marlon ever directed, One Eyed Jacks. I’m proud of the work I did on Billy the Kid, a made-for-TV Western written by Gore Vidal, the towering member of the literati. He shares the chapter "Doc Hollidays," about the making of the 1993 western Tombstone - in which he portrays the tuberculosis-plagued gunslinger Doc Holliday - with C&I readers. Legendary actor Val Kilmer details remembrances of his remarkable career in I'm Your Huckleberry: A Memoir (Simon & Schuster).
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