‘Top Gun’ star Val Kilmer dies aged 65
NEW YORK
Prolific American actor Val Kilmer, who was propelled to fame with "Top Gun" and went on to starring roles as Batman and Jim Morrison, has died at age 65.
The cause of death was pneumonia, his daughter Mercedes Kilmer told the New York Times. He had battled throat cancer following a 2014 diagnosis, but later recovered, she said.
Originally a stage actor, Kilmer burst onto the big screen full of charisma, cast as a rock star in Cold War spoof "Top Secret!" in 1984.
Two years later, he gained fame as the cocky, if mostly silent fighter pilot in training Tom "Iceman" Kazansky in box office smash hit "Top Gun," playing a rival to Tom Cruise's "Maverick."
A versatile character actor whose career spanned decades, Kilmer toggled between blockbusters and smaller-budget independent films. He got a shot at leading man status in Oliver Stone's "The Doors," depicting Jim Morrison's journey from a psychedelics-loving LA film student to 60s rock frontman.
After a cameo in Quentin Tarantino-written "True Romance," Kilmer went on to star alongside Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in "Heat" and took a turn as the masked Gotham vigilante in "Batman Forever," between the Bruce Wayne portrayals by Michael Keaton and George Clooney.
Born Val Edward Kilmer on New Year's Eve 1959, he began acting in commercials as a child.
Kilmer was the youngest person ever accepted to the drama department at New York's fabled Juilliard school, and made his Broadway debut in 1983 alongside Sean Penn and Kevin Bacon.
Chastened by a decade or more of low-budget movies, he was mounting a comeback in the 2010s with a successful stage show about Mark Twain that he hoped to turn into a film when he was struck by cancer.
"Val," an intimate documentary about Kilmer's stratospheric rise and later fall in Hollywood, premiered at the Cannes film festival in 2021 and showed him struggling for air after a tracheotomy.
Kilmer "has the aura of a man who was dealt his cosmic comeuppance and came through it," U.S. publication Variety wrote of the film. "He fell from stardom, maybe from grace, but he did it his way."
When he reprised his role as "Iceman" in the long-awaited sequel "Top Gun: Maverick," Kilmer's real-life health issues, and rasp of voice, were written into the character.
