In the modern history of Westerns, it would be hard to find a cowboy as charismatic or instantly iconic as Val Kilmer’s portrayal of Doc Holliday in 1993’s Tombstone. Today considered one of the greatest westerns ever made, Kilmer’s performance as the well-educated gunslinger with a quick draw is one of the best of his career, with Holliday’s classy wit and careless daring shining through every one of his scenes. As unconditionally loyal to Tombstone’s Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell) as he is profligate in his pursuit of cards and alcohol; however, the film spends less time on Holliday’s backstory than it does his self-destructive habits, leaving several gaps in the audience’s understanding of the character.
The largest of these gaps relates to the character’s mysterious illness throughout the movie, which begins as a slight cough in Tombstone’s early scenes and causes Kilmer’s cowboy to appear increasingly fatigued as the story progresses. Almost constantly covered in a glistening sheen of sweat, Holliday doesn’t allow his sickness to prevent him from joining Russell’s great revenge ride against Tombstone’s cowboys, but his condition worsens after Russell’s righteous riders are ambushed by Curly Bill (Powers Boothe) during the movie’s river shootout. Between coughing up blood and passing out, Holliday’s sweat comes to signify a poor bill of health that hurts him more than any cowboy can, so what was the real reason behind Holliday’s perpetually damp face?
Doc Holliday’s Sweating Is a Symptom of a Worse Disease in ‘Tombstone’
While the film never outright confirms the details of Holliday’s disease, viewers familiar with the jargon and circumstances of Tombstone’s nineteenth-century setting can guess what ails everyone’s favorite southern gunslinger. The fact that Holliday’s rivals consistently refer to him as a “lunger” throughout the film hints at the origins of his cough, while the details of the real Doc Holliday’s biography confirm the drifter had contracted tuberculosis by the time he took part in the infamous gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Also known as consumption during the time Tombstone takes place, common symptoms of tuberculosis include prolonged coughing fits, spitting up blood, and increased sweating, confirming the disease as the true culprit behind Holliday’s shortened life in Tombstone.
Although the film doesn’t delve into the prevalence or full implications of Holliday’s disease, the legacy of tuberculosis in America is no laughing matter. The illness is so fatal and contagious that it is estimated to have killed one out of every seven people who lived before the year 1800, with preventative sanitation measures only being fully implemented in the years after Holliday had already contracted the disease. As the essential Kurt Russell film demonstrates, the world of Tombstone is filled more with booze and bloodshed than good hygiene, so Holliday’s dissolute lifestyle undoubtedly contributed to his health’s gradual decline.
How Did Doc Holliday Contract Tuberculosis in ‘Tombstone’?
As for how Kilmer’s short-lived marshal finds himself dying in the first place, Tombstone doesn’t offer the audience a clear answer, instead using Holliday’s crumbling health to thematically convey the character’s fatalism and make his final devotion to Russell’s character all the more heartbreaking. Therefore, in order to understand the suffering behind one of Kilmer’s most crucial performances, it’s important to once again draw from the movie’s real-life inspiration. In practice, tuberculosis is caused by the spread of germs that travel through the air, making the disease remarkably easy to catch and die from without proper treatment. Since Holliday’s mother died of the disease while he was still a teenager, it’s likely he caught his death sentence from her, marking the one time Tombstone’s skilled gambler had a run of truly tragic luck.
Just as in the movie, Holliday’s condition causes him to pass away at a sanatorium in Glenwood Springs, Colorado after resolving Earp’s vendetta. At the time, such facilities were meant to provide patients with more hospitable conditions for easing their symptoms, but Tombstone ultimately uses the setting to reaffirm the deep humanity that survived Holliday’s years of sickness. In a movie that already gives audiences one of the coolest moments in a Kurt Russell movie, the film highlights how Holliday chooses to live with his disease, cleverly exaggerating his symptoms in order to take Wyatt’s place in his duel with Michael Biehn’s Johnny Ringo in Tombstone’s most epic scene. And even though Kilmer’s character doesn’t outlive his achievement for long, his final, sweat-stained moments onscreen underscore the friendship at the heart of the movie by having him encourage Earp to go live the long life he never got the chance to enjoy in the first place.