‘That’s Simchas Torah’: The Jewish Val Kilmer moment you might have missed
The late actor referenced a relatively obscure Jewish holiday during his first film debut
Val Kilmer in “Top Secret!” (Screenshot)
(JTA) — When the world got news of Val Kilmer’s passing on Tuesday, many Jews surely thought of the movie star’s iconic turn providing the voices for God and Moses in the 1998 animated feature “The Prince of Egypt,” a perennial Passover favorite.
But the late actor had a lesser-known Jewish movie moment, centered on another holiday, in his 1984 debut film — a Cold War spy spoof titled “Top Secret!” from ZAZ, the Jewish team behind the classic comedy “Airplane!”
In the movie, Kilmer plays a rockstar who is told the date of a nefarious plot by the movie’s East German antagonists. He replies, “Sunday? But that’s Simchas Torah.”
Though Kilmer was not Jewish himself, his on-point pronunciation of the relatively obscure fall Jewish holiday — which celebrates the end and beginning of the annual cycle of Torah readings — resonated with viewers.
In one comment on a YouTube clip of the dialogue, a user commented, “A punch line designed to entertain .00025% of the audience. Lucky for me, I’m amongst the select few!”
After his entrance into the spotlight in “Top Secret!” Kilmer’s illustrious career included breakout roles as Iceman in “Top Gun,” Jim Morrison in the 1991 biopic “The Doors” and Batman in 1995’s “Batman Forever.”
The late movie star had an unusual Hollywood arc and put his mainstream projects on pause for a time in order to spend more time with his kids, according to a 2012 interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
He was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014 but later recovered. Kilmer died following a bout of pneumonia in Los Angeles on April 1 at age 65.
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