Val Kilmer, actor of “Top Gun” who also played, died at 65

Los Angeles (AP) – Val Kilmer, the actor brooding and versatile who played the favorite of fans Iceman in “Top Gun”, put on a voluminous cape as Batman in “Batman Forever” and depicts Jim Morrison in “The Doors”, died. He was 65 years old.

Kilmer died on Tuesday evening in Los Angeles, surrounded by family and friends, said his daughter, Mercedes Kilmer, in an email at the Associated Press.

Val Kilmer died of pneumonia. He recovered after a diagnosis of throat cancer in 2014 which required two tracheotomies.

“I behaved badly. I really behaved. “And I’m blessed.

Kilmer, the youngest actor ever accepted at the prestigious Juilliard school when he attended, knew the ups and downs of more dramatically than most. His break occurred in the 1984 spying usurpation “Top secret!” Followed by the comedy “Real Genius” in 1985. Kilmer would later show his comedy chops in films including “Macgruber” and “Kiss Kiss Bang”.

His cinematographic career struck his Zenith in the early 1990s when he made a name for himself as a first dashing man, with Kurt Russell and Bill Paxton in “Tombstone” of 1993, as a ghost of Elvis in “True Romance” and as an expert in the demolition of Banks by Michael Mann in the film of Michael Mann ” Robert de Niro.

The actor – who participated in the branch of the training method on Suzuki arts – threw himself into games. When he played Doc Holliday in “Tombstone”, he filled his bed with ice for the final scene to imitate the feeling of dying of tuberculosis. To play Morrison, he was bringing leather all the time, asked comrades and the crew to qualify as Jim Morrison and to explode the doors for a year.

This intensity also gave Kilmer a reputation with which it was difficult to work with, something with which he was reluctantly agreed in life later, but always defending himself by emphasizing art to trade.

“In an unfailing attempt to allow directors, actors and other collaborators to honor the truth and the essence of each project, an attempt to breathe Suzukian life in a myriad of Hollywood moments, I was considered difficult and alienated the head of each big studio,” he wrote in his memories, “I am your manique.”

One of his most emblematic roles – Hatshot Tom Pilot “Iceman” Kazansky in front of Tom Cruise – has hardly happened. Kilmer was courted by director Tony Scott for “Top Gun” but initially fell. “I did not want the role. I did not care about the film. History did not interest me,” he wrote in his memories. He agreed after being promised that his role would improve in relation to the initial script. He resumed the role in the rest of the film in 2022, “Top Gun: Maverick”.

A career that Nadir played Batman in Goofy by Joel Schumacher, Garish “Batman Forever” with Nicole Kidman and the opposite of Robin by Chris O’Donnell – before George Clooney took the mantle for “Batman & Robin” from 1997 and “Batman Returns” in 1989 in 1989.

Janet Maslin in the New York Times said that Kilmer had been “paralyzed by the direct aspects of the role”, while Roger Ebert Deadpann was a “completely acceptable” substitute for Keaton. Kilmer, who was one and made as Batman, blamed a large part of his performance on the costume.

Times was the first to report his death on Tuesday.

“When you are there, you can barely move and people have to help you get up and sit down,” said Kilmer in “Val”. “You don’t hear anything either and after a while, people stop talking to you, it’s very insulating. It was a struggle for me to take a performance after the costume, and it was frustrating until I realize that my role in the film was just to introduce yourself and to hold on where I was told.”

His next projects were the cinematographic version of the 1960s television series “The Saint” – by ardent wigs, accents and glasses – and “Dr Moreau’s island” with Marlon Brando, which has become one of the most sadly cursed productions in the decade.

David Gregory’s documentary in 2014 “Lost Soul: The Convicted Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau,” described a cursed set that included a hurricane, the director of intimidation Kilmer Richard Stanley, the dismissal of Stanley via Fax (who snealed Richard with a mask) and Kilmer and Brando. The older actor told the youngest at some point: “” It’s a job now, Val. A LARK. We are going to pass through. “I was as sad as ever in a set,” wrote Kilmer in her memoirs.

In 1996, Entertainment Weekly published a coverage on kilmer entitled “The Hol Hollywood likes to hate.” Directors Schumacher and John Frankenheimer, who finished “Dr Moreau’s island,” said it was difficult. Frankenheimer said there were two things that he would never do: “Go up Everest and work again with Val Kilmer.”

Other artists came to his defense, such as DJ Caruso, who directed Kilmer in “The Salton Sea” and said that the actor simply liked to talk about the scenes and liked to have the attention of a director.

“Val must immerse itself in a character. I think what happened with directors like Frankenheimer and Schumacher is that Val would ask a lot of questions, and a guy like Schumacher would say: “You are Batman! Go do it, ” said Caruso to the New York Times in 2002.

After “the island of Dr Moreau”, the films were smaller, like the human traffic thriller by David Mamet “Spartan”; ″ Joe the King “in 1999, in which he played an alcoholic punchy and abusive; And playing the condemned porn star John Holmes in “Wonderland” in 2003. He also threw himself into his One-Man stage show “Citizen Twain”, in which he played Mark Twain.

“I appreciate the depth and the soul that the play has what Twain had for its neighbor and America,” he told Variety in 2018. “And the comedy that is always so close to the surface, and how precious his genius is for us today. However, we fight racism and greed. The same country is grandeur and tragedy.”

Kilmer has spent his training years in the Los Angeles Chatsworth district. He attended Chatsworth high school alongside the future winner of the Oscars Kevin Spacey and the future winner of Emmy Mare Winingham. At 17, he was the youngest dramatic student ever admitted to Juilliard School in 1981.

Shortly after his departure for Juilliard, his young brother, Wesley, 15, underwent a crisis of epilepsy in the family jacuzzi and died on the way to the hospital. Wesley was a budding filmmaker when he died.

“I miss it and her things miss. I have his art. I like to think of what he would have created. I am still inspired by him, “Kilmer at Times told.

While he was still in Juilliard, Kilmer co-written and appeared in the play “How It All Begin” and then refused a role in “The Outsiders” by Francis Ford Coppola for Broadway’s play, “Slal Boys”, alongside Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn.

Kilmer published two poetry books (including “My Edens After Burns”) and was nominated for a Grammy in 2012 for the word album spoken for “The Mark of Zorro”. He was also a visual artist and a long -standing Christian scientist.

He went out with Dear, married and divorced actor Joanne Whalley.

He is survived by their two children, Mercedes and Jack.

Kennedy reported in New York.

Originally published: April 1, 2025 at 9:57 p.m.