Hollywood actor Val Kilmer, known for his roles in Top Gun, The Doors and Batman Forever, died on Tuesday in Los Angeles, aged 65.
The cause of death was pneumonia, his daughter Mercedes Kilmer confirmed to The New York Times. The actor was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014 but later recovered, she said.
In 2021, the actor was the focus of an Amazon Prime Video documentary called Val that followed his life and career. The documentary showed previously unseen, private footage dating back to the 1970s and also documented Kilmer’s recovery from throat cancer.
Initially keeping his diagnosis a secret, the actor underwent a tracheotomy that affected his ability to speak causing him to use a voice box to talk. “I was recently diagnosed with throat cancer. I'm still recovering, and it is difficult to talk and to be understood,” he says in the film.
Kilmer was born on December 31, 1959, in Los Angeles, California. When he was 18, he faced the devastating loss of his younger brother, Wesley, who drowned at the age of 15 in 1977. Shortly after his brother’s death, Kilmer became the youngest person at the time to be accepted into the famed Juilliard School’s Drama Group. This became the start of his acting career.
He made his Broadway debut in 1983 in The Slab Boys, a drama by playwright John Byrne about young workers in a Scottish carpet factory. The production also featured future Hollywood stars Sean Penn and Kevin Bacon.
However, Kilmer's big breakthrough came with the 1986 action film Top Gun, where he portrayed the cool and confident naval aviator Lt Tom “Iceman” Kazanski. This role catapulted him into the Hollywood spotlight.
He found success on the big screen playing Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's The Doors (1991) and taking on the mantle of the Dark Knight in Batman Forever (1995), which had mixed reviews. However, he continued taking on diverse and challenging roles, from the enigmatic Doc Holliday in Tombstone (1993) to the master of disguise in The Saint (1997).
After being diagnosed with throat cancer, Kilmer also candidly discussed his battle in his 2020 memoir, I'm Your Huckleberry. He made a poignant return to the big screen by reprising his role as Iceman in a brief cameo in the 2022 sequel Top Gun: Maverick.
Kilmer married actress Joanne Whalley after they met on the set of Willow (1988), but the couple later divorced. He is survived by their two children, Mercedes, 33, and Jack Kilmer, 29.
