Val Kilmer, ‘Top Gun’ and ‘Batman Forever’ star, dies at 65 (report)

Val Kilmer, the mercurial actor known for playing charismatic rogues and prickly heroes in such films as The Doors, Batman Forever, and Top Gun, has died at 65.

His daughter, Mercedes Kilmer, told The New York Times that the actor died of pneumonia Tuesday. Kilmer had been diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014 and went public with his diagnosis in 2017. His daughter told the outlet that he had recovered.

A devout Christian Scientist, Kilmer considered prayer to be the primary treatment for his condition, though he also underwent chemotherapy and radiation at the urging of his family. The process left him with a tracheostomy tube that made speaking difficult. He shared his health journey in the 2021 documentary Val, with his son, Jack Kilmer, taking on the bulk of the narration in his father’s place.

Kilmer’s final screen appearance was in the 2022 sequel Top Gun: Maverick, sharing a powerful scene opposite Tom Cruise, who he costarred with in the 1986 original.

“Coming back to work with Tom more than 30 years later, it was like no time had passed at all,” Kilmer told Entertainment Weekly after the film became a box office smash. “Being next to him instantly makes you better. That said, we blew a lot of takes laughing so much. It was really fun — really special… And when the movie was released this summer, the response was just amazing! I was particularly thrilled and humbled by the audience’s reaction to my scene with Tom.”

A Los Angeles native, Kilmer began acting in high school, where he was a classmate of Kevin Spacey and Mare Winningham. He went on to attend the Hollywood Professional School and the Juilliard School in New York City, where he became the youngest student yet admitted to the drama department.

Kilmer made his big-screen debut in the 1984 rock & roll spy spoof Top Secret and landed his breakout role two years later in Top Gun, playing Cruise’s unflappable flyboy rival, Iceman.

His other notable roles included the doomed rock icon Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s The Doors, the consumptive gunslinger Doc Holliday in Tombstone, the Dark Knight in Batman Forever (taking up the mantle from Michael Keaton), an expert bank robber in Heat (opposite Robert De Niro and Al Pacino), the voice of Moses in DreamWorks’ animated movie The Prince of Egypt, porn star John Holmes in Wonderland, and a tough-as-nails gay P.I. in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

Kilmer also wrote, directed, produced, and starred in the one-man show Citizen Twain, which grew out of an intended film about Mark Twain. (Twain was Kilmer’s favorite storyteller, and a figure of particular interest in his life.)

Kilmer published a memoir in 2020, I’m Your Huckleberry (its title taken from a Doc Holliday line in Tombstone).

From 1988 to 1996, Kilmer was married to actress Joanne Whalley, whom he met on the set of Willow. They had two children, Mercedes and Jack.