Actor Val Kilmer, star of Top Gun and Tombstone, dies aged 65
By Tessa Flemming and wires
Topic:Arts, Culture and Entertainment
10m ago10 minutes agoWed 2 Apr 2025 at 4:56am
A man is at a move scene of Top Gun
Kilmer starred alongside Tom Cruise in Top Gun. (Getty Images: CBS)
Actor Val Kilmer, star of Top Gun and Tombstone, has died aged 65.
He died from pneumonia,The New York Times reported, attributing Kilmer's daughter Mercedes Kilmer.
He was also known for donning the batsuit in Batman Forever, following Michael Keaton.
Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014 and later recovered, Ms Kilmer said.
Val, a 2021 documentary about his life, showed him needing a breathing tube.
Val Kilmer sitting at a burnt orange theatre seat with his arm raised on the back of a chair while wearing a grey suit
Val Kilmer seen here in 2014. (AP: Mark Humphrey)
After losing his voice, a cameo in Top Gun: Maverick was made possible with the aid of AI technology.
Kilmer's breakthrough role came with the 1986 classic Top Gun, and his role as Tom "Iceman" Kazansky.
However, it was his portrayal of rock star Jim Morrison in 1991's The Doors that earned him MTV's Movie Award for Best Male Performance.
Hollywood heart-throb to flop maker
Kilmer was one of Hollywood's most prominent leading men in the 1990s before numerous spats with directors and co-stars and a series of flops dented his career.
Over the years, Kilmer gained a reputation as temperamental, intense, perfectionistic and sometimes egotistical.
"When certain people criticise me for being demanding, I think that's a cover for something they didn't do well. I think they're trying to protect themselves," he told the Orange County Register newspaper in 2003.
"I believe I'm challenging, not demanding, and I make no apologies for that."
A man in suit is smiling
Kilmer garnered a perfectionist reputation at times. (Getty Images: Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic)
He made his film debut starring in the 1984 spy spoof Top Secret! before appearing in the goofy 1985 comedy Real Genius.
Kilmer starred in director Ron Howard's 1988 fantasy Willow and married his British co-star Joanne Whalley, with whom he had two children before divorcing.
Playing Jim Morrison
One of his most challenging roles came in director Oliver Stone's The Doors in which he played Jim Morrison, the charismatic and ultimately doomed lead singer of the influential rock band The Doors.
To try to persuade Stone to cast him, Kilmer put together an eight-minute video of himself singing and looking like Morrison at various points in his life. Kilmer's own singing voice is used in the film.
The Doors ushered in the highest-profile years of his career.
In the 1993 Western Tombstone, he played Old West gunfighter Doc Holliday.
He had two commercial successes in 1995, co-starring with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in the crime drama Heat and Batman Forever.
The instalment in the franchise was received tepidly by critics, and Kilmer was upstaged by co-stars Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey.
Kilmer pulled out of the next Batman movie.
Director Joel Schumacher called Kilmer "the most psychologically troubled human being I've ever worked with."
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Posted10m ago10 minutes agoWed 2 Apr 2025 at 4:56am, updated9m ago9 minutes agoWed 2 Apr 2025 at 4:57am
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