It's with a heavy heart that we report tonight that Val Kilmer has died at the age of 65 in Los Angeles after a short battle with pneumonia. His daughter Mercedes Kilmer confirmed news of his passing to The New York Times earlier this evening.
Kilmer had also battled throat cancer since 2015, and had a procedure on his trachea that damaged his vocal cords to the point where it significantly limited his ability to speak. He had also undergone chemotherapy treatments and two tracheotomies.
He is survived by his two adult children, Mercedes and Jack, who he had with ex-wife Joanne Whalley.
Kilmer's breakthrough performance was in 1986's Top Gun, where he played Tom 'Iceman' Kazansky, and his career reached new heights in 1991 when he played Jim Morrison in The Doors. His most prominent credits also include playing Doc Holliday in 1993's Tombstone, Bruce Wayne/Batman in 1995's Batman Forever, and Chris Shiherlis in Heat.
He also starred in Real Genius, Willow, Thunderheart, The Saint, True Romance, The Ghost and the Darkness, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Déjà Vu, Wonderland, MacGruber, and The Snowman.
His final on-screen performance was in the 2022 action blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick, where he reprised his iconic role as Adm. Tom 'Iceman' Kazansky opposite Tom Cruise's Capt. Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell. A fitting end to a legendary career.
Kilmer is probably best known to comic book movie fans for his portrayal of Bruce Wayne in Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever, While not a critical success, the film still grossed over $336.6 million globally on an estimated $100 million production budget.
Speaking on his experience, Kilmer told Entertainment Tonight in 1995, "Everything was different about this job than I’d experienced before. The size of the character and how strange it was that Michael Keaton had decided not to do it — I just said yes, without reading the script."
In 2021, the documentary Val was released, documenting his health issues and career. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and received widespread critical acclaim.
In the documentary, he revisited wearing the Batman suit. “When you’re in it, you can barely move and people have to help you stand up and sit down,” Kilmer says. “You also can’t hear anything and after a while people stop talking to you, it’s very isolating. It was a struggle for me to get a performance past the suit, and it was frustrating until I realised that my role in the film was just to show up and stand where I was told to.
Whatever boyhood excitement I had was crushed by the reality of the Batsuit. Yes, every boy wants to be Batman. They actually want to be him … not necessarily play him in a movie.”
Revisit his final performance below:
Rest in peace, Val Kilmer.