Val Kilmer, the brooding, versatile actor who played fan favorite Iceman in “Top Gun”, donned a voluminous cape as Batman in “Batman Forever” and portrayed Jim Morrison in “The Doors”, has died at age 65.
Kilmer died Tuesday night in Los Angeles surrounded by family and friends, his daughter Mercedes Kilmer said in an email to The Associated Press.
Val Kilmer died from pneumonia. He had recovered after a 2014 throat cancer diagnosis that required two tracheotomies. “I have behaved poorly. I have behaved bravely. I have behaved bizarrely to some. I deny none of this and have no regrets because I have lost and found parts of myself that I never knew existed,” he says toward the end of “Val”, the 2021 documentary on his career. “And I am blessed.”
Kilmer, the youngest actor ever accepted to the prestigious Juilliard School at the time he attended, experienced the ups and downs of fame more dramatically than most. His break came in 1984’s spy spoof “Top Secret!” followed by the comedy “Real Genius” in 1985. Kilmer would later show his comedy chops again in films including “MacGruber” and “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang”.
His movie career hit its zenith in the early 1990s as he made a name for himself as a dashing leading man, starring alongside Kurt Russell and Bill Paxton in 1993’s “Tombstone”, as Elvis’ ghost in “True Romance” and as a bank-robbing demolition expert in Michael Mann’s 1995 film “Heat” with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro.
