Val Kilmer, Batman Forever and Top Gun Star, Dead at 65
Actor Val Kilmer, who took on a range of roles from Batman Forever’s Bruce Wayne to Top Gun’s Tom “Iceman” Kazansky, died on April 1 in Los Angeles. His daughter, Mercedes Kilmer, confirmed the news of his death and told the New York Times that the cause was pneumonia. She added that her father had been diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014, but later recovered. Kilmer, who was also known for immersing himself in the role of Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s 1991 biopic The Doors, was 65.
Born in Los Angeles in 1959, Kilmer decided to formally pursue acting when he was a high school student; at 17, he became the youngest person at the time to be accepted into Juilliard’s Drama Division. Although he began his career as a stage actor, a breakout role in the 1984 action comedy Top Secret! kicked off a string of film and TV roles, including Tombstone, The Island of Dr. Moreau, “Manifesting a character is all part of the spiritual process,” Kilmer reflected to Vulture in 2021. “I attack roles like I attack life — with purpose.” In the same interview, he acknowledged past rumors that he was hard to work with on set, noting, “I’ve always approached what I do very seriously, and I understand that sometimes that’s perceived as being difficult.”
Kilmer’s life and career was chronicled in the 2021 documentary Val, which included footage he had been recording of himself for decades. The later years of his career were devoted largely to his well-documented interest in Mark Twain. Kilmer wrote and starred in the one-man play Citizen Twain, which explores the author’s feud with Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy. (Kilmer was a Christian Scientist.) According to the Times, he began performing the play in 2010. He later played Twain in the 2014 film Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, and had plans to make and star in his own film exploring Twain and Eddy’s relationship.
More recently, Kilmer reprised his role as Iceman alongside Tom Cruise in 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick, which appears to be his final onscreen credit. He has previously suggested that he may not have always held his roles in blockbuster films, including Batman Forever, in as high regard as his other work. “I regret anything snarky I said about acting with a capital ‘A’ in relation to that giant project or any other,’” he told Vulture in 2017. “I was insecure when I was younger, and competitive and wanted to be loved for my Hamlet while I waited in line for my decaf, not ‘Hey, Iceman!’ I mean … [Top Gun] is still the best airplane movie ever made, and I laugh myself silly when I see it on TV! It’s just perfect!”
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