Val Kilmer

Born on December 31, 1959, in Los Angeles, CA, Kilmer's more significant accomplishments include becoming the youngest student admitted to Juilliard for drama, his dead-on portrayal of Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's The Doors, and taking over the role of Batman from Michael Keaton. He is the father of two children from his eight year marriage to British actress Joanne Whalley (they are now divorced). His reputation is one of being a brilliant actor with perfectionist tendencies to the point of being rather difficult to work with. Director John Frankenheimer even allegedly claimed that the only two things he staunchly refused to do were to climb Mount Everest or ever work with Kilmer again.

Other notable Val Kilmer movies include Real Genius (1985), The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains (1987), Tombstone (1993), Heat (1995), The Ghost and The Darkness (1996), The Saint (1997), The Prince of Egypt (1998), The Salton Sea (2002), Wonderland (2003), and Alexander (2004). He is an avid traveller, enjoys scuba diving, and is known to dabble in poetry.

Strangely enough, his presence in downtown Toronto is as ubiquitous as the pigeons and black squirrels inhabiting Queens' Park. Thanks to a group of taggers with a rampant Kilmer obsession, there are literally hundreds of photocopied Val Kilmer faces adorning downtown Toronto buildings. This is often accompanied by his spray-painted name or simply the word "Void".

Some have speculated the taggings were a publicity stunt promoting a local band called Val Kilmer, later known as the Val Kilmer Tagging Caper. Apparently, the sleeve for their CD contains a band member list consisting of various Val Kilmer film characters. While this is the most widely accepted explanation, on further examination it becomes doubtful whether or not this band actually exists. Others believe the tagging was inspired by drunken comments made by the actor himself at the Toronto International Film Festival several years ago, although this has been vehemently denied by Kilmer's people.