Charismatic actor played Batman, starred in ‘Top Gun’

PARAMOUNT/KOBAL/SHUTTERSTOCKABOVE: Val Kilmer, left, as Iceman, 

and Tom Cruise, as Maverick, let off some steam in 1986’s “Top Gun.” 

3 Apr 2025 - The Washington Post

BY ANDREW JEONG AND ANNABELLE TIMSIT 

Thomas Floyd and Emily Langer contributed to this report.

From page B1 Val Kilmer, an actor who rose to Hollywood stardom with wideranging and charismatic performances in roles including Tom “Iceman” Kazansky in the “Top Gun” action films, rocker Jim Morrison in the drama “The Doors” and the caped crusader in “Batman Forever,” died April 1 in Los Angeles. He was 65.

The Associated Press reported his death, citing an email from his daughter, Mercedes Kilmer. The cause was pneumonia, according to the news agency.

Mr. Kilmer, who reached the peak of his fame in the 1980s and 1990s with a handsome and swaggering appeal, was once described by film critic Roger Ebert as “the most unsung leading man of his generation.” A theater prodigy in his youth, he immersed himself in his roles, all but assuming the identities of the characters he portrayed.

Mr. Kilmer delivered his first major film performance in “Top Gun” (1986), a blockbuster and fixture of pop culture in which he and Tom Cruise played rival Navy fighter pilots.

In a display of his versatility, Mr. Kilmer played the swordsman Madmartigan in “Willow” (1988), a fantasy-adventure film directed by Ron Howard, before taking on the part of Morrison in Oliver Stone’s 1991 film about the 1960s rock band the Doors. While Mr. Kilmer was preparing for the film, he demanded that castmates address him only as “Morrison” — a move that typified the intensity of his approach to his craft.

In “Batman Forever” (1995), directed by Joel Schumacher, Mr. Kilmer played the superhero role previously entrusted to Michael Keaton and later played by George Clooney. Writing in the New York Times, film critic Janet Maslin observed that Mr. Kilmer made “a good Batman but not a better one than” Keaton, though she added that Mr. Kilmer developed “more dash as the story unfolds.”

Mr. Kilmer’s other notable credits included “Heat” (1995), in which he and Robert De Niro played robbers facing off with Al Pacino’s cop, and “Tombstone” (1993), a Western co-starring Kurt Russell in which Mr. Kilmer played dentist turned gunfighter Doc Holliday.

“People ask me what it’s like to work with Val Kilmer,” actor Michael Biehn, who also appeared in “Tombstone,” told the Los Angeles Times. “I don’t know. Never met him. Never shook his hand. I know Doc Holliday, but I don’t know Kilmer.”

In the 2000s, financial difficulty and fading career prospects steered Mr. Kilmer toward the direct-to-video circuit. He conceded that he could be difficult to work with.

In a 2020 memoir, “I’m Your Huckleberry,” Mr. Kilmer wrote that “in an unflinching attempt to empower directors, actors and other collaborators to honor the truth and essence of each project,” he “had been deemed difficult and alienated the head of every major studio.”

The actor was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014, and he said he initially wanted to rely on his Christian Science faith for healing but was persuaded to seek medical help after his children beseeched him. The treatment — chemotherapy, radiation and multiple tracheostomies — led to his recovery but reduced his ability to speak naturally.

In his memoir, he wrote that he sounded like a “buffalo,” or “Marlon Brando after a couple of bottles of tequila.” The cancer made speaking “an hourly struggle,” he wrote.

Mr. Kilmer chronicled his battle against throat cancer in the 2021 documentary “Val,” which featured his son, Jack, voicing his father’s words.

After losing his voice, Mr. Kilmer worked with U.k.-based software firm Sonantic to restore it using artificial intelligence, saying in a statement at the time that he was grateful for the “chance to narrate my story, in a voice that feels authentic and familiar.”

Val Edward Kilmer was born in Los Angeles on Dec. 31, 1959. His father, a real estate developer, and his mother divorced when Mr. Kilmer was young.

Mr. Kilmer — whose classmates included Kevin Spacey — acted in school plays and entered Juilliard’s drama department when he was 16 or 17, making him one of the youngest students ever admitted to the school.

The start of his formal training was marred by tragedy. Around the time that Mr. Kilmer left for Juilliard, a younger brother, Wesley, who had epilepsy, drowned in the family’s hot tub, a loss that shadowed Mr. Kilmer for years. “I didn’t really get back to earth until about two or three years after my brother died,” he later told the New York Times.

As he developed as an actor, he became a follower of the Suzuki method of theatrical training developed by director Tadashi Suzuki, which focuses on the physicality of the craft. Mr. Kilmer’s first notable stage role was in a New York production in 1983 of “Slab Boys,” a drama about Scottish carpet-factory workers, with a cast that also featured Sean Penn and Kevin Bacon.

He made his Hollywood debut in “Top Secret!” (1984), a spy comedy in which he played an American rock-and-roll singer who becomes embroiled in Cold War intrigue when he is invited to perform in East Germany.

Mr. Kilmer wrote in his memoir that he was initially uninterested in the script of “Top Gun” and was reluctant to join the cast, but he was won over by director Tony Scott’s jubilance. He reprised his role as Iceman in a 2022 sequel, “Top Gun: Maverick,” appearing to deliver a short, poignant message to Cruise’s character, Capt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell.

Mr. Kilmer’s credits over the years included “Thunderheart” (1992), about an FBI agent tasked with investigating a murder on a Native American reservation; “True Romance” (1993), a romantic crime drama in which Mr. Kilmer played a ghost of Elvis Presley; “The Island of Dr. Moreau” (1996), which co-starred Brando in an adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel; and “Twixt” (2011), a horror film directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

In the later years of his career, Mr. Kilmer wrote, produced, directed and performed a one-man play, “Citizen Twain,” about the writer Mark Twain, and appeared in a 2019 film version of the work, “Cinema Twain.”

Mr. Kilmer’s marriage to British-born actress Joanne Whalley, who appeared with him in “Willow,” ended in divorce. Survivors include their son and daughter.

Reflecting in the documentary on his “magical” life, Mr. Kilmer said: “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.”