Actor Val Kilmer, ‘Top Gun,’ ‘Batman Forever’ star, dies at 65

LOS ANGELES — Actor Val Kilmer, who played Iceman in “Top Gun” and starred in films as Batman, singer Jim Morrison and gunslinger Doc Holliday during his versatile career, died April 1. He was 65.

Kilmer’s cause of death was pneumonia, his daughter, actress Mercedes Kilmer, told The New York Times. Kilmer had been diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014 and later recovered, she added.

The actor died in Los Angeles, surrounded by family and friends, his daughter said.

Kilmer rose to fame as cool, cocky aviator Tom “Iceman” Kazansky opposite Tom Cruise in the 1986 film, “Top Gun.” He reprised his role in a brief cameo in the film’s 2022 sequel, “Top Gun: Maverick.”

Kilmer would go on to portray Doors frontman Morrison in the 1991 film “The Doors” and the alcoholic Holliday, the fast-on-the-draw gunslinger in the 1993 Western, “Tombstone.”

The actor also donned a cowl as the Caped Crusader in the 1995 film “Batman Forever,” doing battle with Jim Carrey (as the Riddler) and Tommy Lee Jones (as Two-Face).

Val Edward Kilmer, part Cherokee, Irish, German and Swedish, was born on Dec. 31, 1959, in Los Angeles and grew up in the city’s suburban Chatsworth neighborhood.

His father, Eugene, was an aerospace engineer and real estate developer and his mother, the former Gladys Ekstadt, was a housewife. Kilmer’s parents divorced when he was 9. His younger brother, Wesley, drowned in a swimming pool in 1977 at the family home his parents bought from Western movie legends Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.

Kilmer’s high school classmates included Kevin Spacey and Mare Winningham.

His film credits also included roles in “Real Genius,” “Willow,” “Heat,” and “The Saint.”

In 2021, a documentary on his life, “Val,” was released. His son, Jack, provided Kilmer’s voice and the film utilized hundreds of hours of video he had recorded through the years.

At the age of 17, Kilmer became one of the youngest students ever accepted into the Juilliard School. He made his Broadway debut in 1983 in “The Slab Boys,” a production that also featured Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn.

In film, Kilmer had a breakout role as rockabilly teen idol Nick Rivers in the 1984 spy spoof, “Top Secret!” and played a brainy college student in the 1985 science-fiction comedy, “Real Genius,” before starring in “Top Gun” with Cruise in 1986.

Michael Mann, who directed Kilmer alongside Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Jon Voight in the 1995 action-thriller “Heat,” said the actor brought a “powerful current” to the movie.

While working with Val on ‘Heat’ I always marveled at the range, the brilliant variability within the powerful current of Val’s possessing and expressing character,” Mann said in a statement. “After so many years of Val battling disease and maintaining his spirit, this is tremendously sad news.”

Francis Ford Coppola, who directed Kilmer in “Twixt,” paid tribute to him in a post on Instagram.

“Val Kilmer was the most talented actor when in his High School, and that talent only grew greater throughout his life,” Coppola wrote. “He was a wonderful person to work with and a joy to know -- I will always remember him.”

Kilmer also appeared in “The Island of Dr. Moreau” (1996); and “Wonderland” (2003), a murder story based on a true crime in which he played pornography actor John Holmes;

Kilmer was married to actress Joanne Whalley, whom he met on the set of the 1988 fantasy film “Willow.” That union ended in divorce. His survivors include their children, Jack and Meredith.

Actor Josh Brolin, a friend of Kilmer, paid tribute to the actor in an Instagram post.

“You were a smart, challenging, brave, uber-creative firecracker,” Brolin wrote. “There’s not a lot left of those.”

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