Val Kilmer, the actor known for playing Iceman in Top Gun, Jim Morrison in The Doors, and the Caped Crusader in Batman Forever, has died at age 65.
News of Kilmer’s passing was confirmed by his daughter Mercedes Kilmer, who told the Associated Press that the actor died of pneumonia on Tuesday night in Los Angeles, surrounded by friends and family.
Val Edward Kilmer was born on December 31st, 1959 in Los Angeles. Despite becoming one of the biggest movie stars of the 1980s and ’90s, he began his career in theater, starring in productions of Orestes and in The Wood Demon as a student at Juilliard. He was so committed to being a proper thespian that he turned down a role in The Outsiders to attend to prior theater engagements — though acting alongside Kevin Bacon, Sean Penn, and Jackie Earle Haley in an Off Broadway production of The Slab Boys proved to be a catch in itself.
Related Video
In 1984, Kilmer appeared in the spy movie spoof Top Secret!, where his striking good looks and acting talent quickly joined forces to make him the 1980s man to cast. He followed it up with Real Genius, then appeared alongside Tom Cruise in the 1986 smash Top Gun. He played Tom “Iceman” Kazansky, Maverick’s rival-turned-wingman, in the film, which grossed $344 million worldwide (and spawned a zeitgeist-shaping sequel nearly four decades later).
Thanks to Top Gun, Kilmer graduated from supporting character actor to leading man. He starred alongside his future wife, Joanne Whalley, in the 1988 fantasy Willow, and again in 1989’s Kill Me Again. In 1991, he portrayed Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s biopic The Doors. Despite his rising star power, the film laid the groundwork for a new reputation for Kilmer as a “difficult” actor. He famously debated Stone about whether or not the biopic should depict Morrison’s drug use, adamantly arguing that he did not want to glamorize addiction. Committed to the method acting process, he became so aggressive with a woman during his audition for the project that the two reached a financial settlement.
Kilmer starred in several more films in the early ’90s, including Thunderheart, The Real McCoy, True Romance, and Tombstone. In 1995, he took over the role of Batman from Michael Keaton for Batman Forever. When he didn’t return for its follow-up, many speculated there was tension between the actor and director Joel Schumacher.
The actor appeared in features like The Ghost and the Darkness, The Saint, At First Sight, Wonderland, The Missing, Spartan, and Alexander before his years-long tussle with fame — and his co-stars — led him away from the spotlight and back to supporting film roles, theater work, and television. He spent years creating the one-man show Citizen Twain, about Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy and one of her biggest critics, Mark Twain. Both figures were two of his biggest influences, an oxymoron not unlike his love for acting and discomfort with leading man success.
In 2015, Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer — a prognosis he long denied, per his Christian Science faith. At the behest of his family, he underwent radiation, chemotherapy, and a procedure on his trachea that reduced his voice to a rasp and required ongoing use of a feeding tube. When he reprised his role as Iceman in 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick, he enlisted the help of an artificial intelligence company to replicate his voice.
Val, a documentary about the actor’s life, premiered in 2021.
