| Genre: | Western |
| Director: | William Graham |
| Executive Producer: | Robert M. Sertner Frank von Zerneck |
| Starring: | Val Kilmer Duncan Regehr Wilford Brimley Julie Carmen |
| Location: | Tucson, Arizona Sonoran Desert Sierrita Mountains Sedona, Arizona Continental, Arizona Cascabel, Arizona White Mountains Sabino Canyon Mescal, Arizona Redington, Arizona Mt. Lemmon San Pedro River |
| Music: | Laurence Rosenthal |
| Cinematography: | Dennis C. Lewiston |
| Editor: | William B. Stich |
| Runtime: | 96 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Network: | TNT |
Gore Vidal's Billy the Kid, also known as Billy the Kid, is a 1989 American western television film about famed gunman Billy the Kid. It aired on TNT cable channel on May 10, 1989.[1]
Written by Gore Vidal and directed by William A. Graham, with Val Kilmer starring in the lead role of William Bonney a.k.a. Billy the Kid, and with a supporting cast including Wilford Brimley, John O'Hurley, Duncan Regehr, and Ned Vaughn.
Vidal said in his memoirs that he had written the original teleplay for The Left Handed Gun, starring Paul Newman as Billy the Kid, decades earlier, and always felt the studio had butchered the material when his television play was used as the basis for a theatrical movie, so he wanted to return to the story for a more accurate rendition. At the time of his original teleplay with Newman, it was thought that the real Billy was left handed. This was based on a photo of Billy that had been inadvertently flipped when printed. Years later, the error was discovered—Billy was right handed.