Val Kilmer, of 'Top Gun' and 'Batman Forever' fame, dies at 65

NBC News

02-04-2025

Val Kilmer, the movie star known for roles in blockbusters like 'Top Gun" and 'Batman Forever,' and as Doc Holliday in a memorable performance in the western 'Tombstone,' died Tuesday night at the age of 65, his daughter told the Associated Press.
Kilmer died from pneumonia in Los Angeles, surrounded by family and friends, daughter Mercedes Kilmer said in an email to the news agency.
Kilmer has said 'I've lived a magical life' and moviegoers would recognize him from a range of some of the most popular movies of his generation and beyond.
He played opposite Tom Cruise as 'Iceman' in 'Top Gun,' released in 1986, which catapulted him to fame. He returned to the role in 'Top Gun: Maverick,' the sequel released in 2022.
In recent years, Kilmer battled health issues.
In 2017, he revealed he was recovering from throat cancer, and People magazine reported in 2021 that the actor had gone undergone a tracheostomy that permanently damaged his speaking voice.
"It isn't easy to talk and be understood," the actor wrote on his website in 2022, discussing the effects of his cancer treatment. "I am improving all the time, but am not able to be out in the world the same way I had become accustomed."
Kilmer played Jim Morrison in the 1991 Oliver Stone film 'The Doors,' and in 1993 delivered a memorable performance as the ailing but deadly Doc Holliday in 'Tombstone," in which he uttered the famous line, 'I'm your huckleberry.'
Kilmer also starred alongside Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in the heist drama 'Heat,' a 1995 film that also included Jon Voight and Tom Sizemore.
In his 2020 memoir, titled 'I'm Your Huckleberry,' Kilmer revealed he did not want the role of Iceman in 'Top Gun.'
'I didn't care about the film. The story didn't interest me,' Kilmer wrote, adding that he was surprised when he got the part.
'I read the lines indifferently and yet, amazingly, I was told I had the part,' he said. 'I felt more deflated than inflated.'
One career nadir was playing Batman in Joel Schumacher's goofy, garish 'Batman Forever' with Nicole Kidman and opposite Chris O'Donnell's Robin — before George Clooney took up the mantle for 1997's 'Batman & Robin' and after Michael Keaton played the Dark Knight in 1989's 'Batman' and 1992's 'Batman Returns.'
Kilmer's presence on the silver screen diminished in the 2000s. The New York Times Magazine wrote in 2020 that, 'His casting problem was solved for him when no one wanted to work with him anymore.
The actor — who took part in the Method branch of Suzuki arts training — threw himself into parts. When he played Doc Holliday in 'Tombstone,' he filled his bed with ice for the final scene to mimic the feeling of dying from tuberculosis. To play Morrison, he wore leather pants all the time, asked castmates and crew to only refer to him as Jim Morrison and blasted The Doors for a year.
That intensity also gave Kilmer a reputation that he was difficult to work with, something he grudgingly agreed with later in life.
'I had been deemed difficult and alienated the head of every major studio,' he wrote in his memoir, according to the New York Times Magazine.
Kilmer also wrote that while he famously had relationships with supermodel Cindy Crawford and actress Angelina Jolie, he was heartbroken after splitting with Daryl Hannah.
'I know I would love her with my whole heart forever and that love has lost none of its strength. I am still in love with Daryl,' he wrote in the memoir, released 19 years after the pair briefly dated in 2001.
Kilmer also dated Cher, who he wrote cared for him after the throat cancer and treatment.
'He was at my house a lot of the time he was sick,' Cher told People in 2021. 'He was brave the whole time. I saw how sick he was."
Kilmer married actor Joanne Whalley in 1988. The pair divorced but had two children, son Jack and daughter Mercedes.
Kilmer grew up in the Chatsworth neighborhood of Los Angeles and attended Chatsworth High School alongside actors Kevin Spacey and Mare Winningham. An 1981, he was the youngest drama student ever admitted to the prestigious Juilliard School, aged 17.
In 2021, 'Val," a documentary about Kilmer's life, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. Kilmer said that throat cancer made it hard to speak and to be understood.
'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,' he said toward the end of the film. 'And I am blessed.'