There are things known and things unknown and in between are The Doors...   ~Jim Morrison

One Hell of a Ride

Val Kilmer delivers what is considered one of 1991's best performances as Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's hallucinatory bio-pic of the seminal 1960s rock group The Doors.

Stone cuts a jagged swath through Morrison's life, starting with a childhood memory where Morrison sees an elderly Indian dying by the roadside. It picks up with Morrison's arrival in California and his assimilation into the Venice Beach culture, followed by his film school days at UCLA; his introduction to his girlfriend Pamela Courson (Meg Ryan); his first encounters with Ray Manzarek (Kyle MacLachlan); and the origin of The Doors -- made up of Manzarek, Robby Kreiger (Frank Whaley), and John Densmor (Kevin Dillon).

As the fame of The Doors grows, Morrison's obsession with death increases. The band grows weary of Morrison's missed recording sessions and no-shows at concerts. Morrison, meanwhile, sinks deeper into a drug-induced haze, having mystical sexual encounters with Patricia Kennealy (Kathleen Quinlan), a rock journalist involved with witchcraft.

Val Kilmer, Meg Ryan, Kyle MacLachlan, Frank Whaley, Kathleen Quinlin and Kevin Dillon.

 The Doors was the catalyst that thrust Kilmer into the spotlight.  His performance received raves globally. From then on, everyone wanted to know what Kilmer was doing. 

What most audiences at that time didn't realized was Kilmer did a lot of the singing for the film.  So well in fact, it's been said that Stone couldn't distinguish between Morrison's and Kilmer's singing when listening to the recordings.  To this day, people can still tell you where they first saw The Doors and how blown away they were by Kilmer's performance.

 Kilmer and Dillon worked together again in an episode of Entourage.