The New York Times reports acclaimed actor Val Kilmer died in Los Angeles on Tuesday, following a battle with pneumonia. He was 65 years old. A Juilliard-trained stage actor, Kilmer made his film debut in the 1984 Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker spy spoof Top Secret!, before becoming a bona fide movie star with his portrayal of Lt. Tom “Iceman” Kazansky in 1986’s Top Gun. He went on to star in Willow (1988), The Doors (1991), Thunderheart (1992), Tombstone, and True Romance (both 1993), before taking on the role of the Caped Crusader in Joel Schumacher‘s Batman Forever (1995).
Kilmer, who took over the role after Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992) star Michael Keaton rejected the script, was a childhood fan of the Adam West series, and accepted the role without even reading the script, or knowing who the director was. He soon regretted taking on the role, as he found the Batsuit restrictive and uncomfortable (“I couldn’t hear anything and after a while people stopped talking to me,” he later recalled), and clashed with Schumacher and other crewmen, reportedly even refusing to speak to the director for two weeks. He declined to return for 1997’s Batman & Robin (where he was replaced by George Clooney), with Schumacher admitting, “He sort of quit, and we sort of fired him.”
Despite the mixed reception Batman Forever received, Kilmer’s performance is fondly remembered by those who grew up watching it, and was even singled out in the 2017 Aubrey Plaza comedy Ingrid Goes West. He would revisit the role indirectly in 2019’s Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, portraying himself as starring in a Bluntman and Chronic reboot. Other comics-related projects included the 2008 TV movie XIII: The Conspiracy (based on the Belgian graphic novel series by Jean Van Hamme and William Vance), and the 2011 video game Spider-Man: Edge of Time (his sole games credit), where he voiced the villainous Walker Sloan.
After his turn as Batman, Kilmer starred in Heat (1995), The Island of Dr. Moreau and The Ghost and the Darkness (1996), The Saint (1997), and The Prince of Egypt (1998), where he voiced Moses and G-d. However, he had developed a reputation for being a difficult actor to work with, and after 2001, starred in an increasing number of direct-to-video films, something not even an acclaimed turn in Shane Black‘s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) was able to stop. He took on the voice of KITT in the shortlived reboot of Knight Rider (2008-09), and the role of the villain in 2010’s MacGruber movie, but was largely still relegated to DTV work.
In 2015, Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer; despite being a Christian Scientist, he agreed to undergo chemotherapy and tracheostomies. After a two-year battle, Kilmer was left with a trachea that made it difficult for him to breathe or speak, as well as reliant on a feeding tube to eat. He published his memoir, I’m Your Huckleberry (referencing his role in Tombstone) in 2020, and starred in an autobiographical documentary, simply titled Val, the year after.
Although he worked with a British software company to create a digital replica of his voice, his son Jack Kilmer wound up narrating the documentary, and filling in for his character’s voice on the 2022-23 Disney+ series Willow. Kilmer made his final acting appearance with a cameo in 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick, for which his voice was only digitally finetuned to make it clearer to the audience.
Kilmer was married to his Willow co-star Joanne Whalley from 1988 to 1996; he is survived by her and their two children, Jack and Mercedes. Heat director Michael Mann was among those who paid tribute to him after his passing, saying “I always marvelled at the range, the brilliant variability within the powerful current of Val’s possessing and expressing character. After so many years of Val battling disease and maintaining his spirit, this is tremendously sad news.” Film critic Richard Roeper commented, “Val Kilmer should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Tombstone and for Heat. He was a brilliant presence in some of the most enduring films of his generation. Rest well.”
