{"id":22889,"date":"2025-04-02T09:07:01","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T15:07:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/val-kilmer-top-gun-and-batman-star-with-an-intense-approach-dies-at-65\/"},"modified":"2025-04-02T15:07:01","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T15:07:01","slug":"val-kilmer-top-gun-and-batman-star-with-an-intense-approach-dies-at-65","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/val-kilmer-top-gun-and-batman-star-with-an-intense-approach-dies-at-65\/","title":{"rendered":"Val Kilmer, \u2018Top Gun\u2019 and \u2018Batman\u2019 star with an intense approach, dies at 65"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Val
Val Kilmer, seen here in 2014, died Tuesday night at age 65. (Associated Press file)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LOS ANGELES \u2013 Val Kilmer, the brooding, versatile actor who played fan favorite Iceman in \u201cTop Gun,\u201d wore a voluminous cape as Batman in \u201cBatman Forever\u201d and portrayed Jim Morrison in \u201cThe Doors,\u201d has died. He was 65.<\/p>\n

Kilmer died Tuesday night in Los Angeles, surrounded by family and friends, his daughter, Mercedes Kilmer, said in an email to The Associated Press. The New York Times<\/em> was the first to report his death on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Kilmer died from pneumonia. He had recovered after a 2014 throat cancer diagnosis that required two tracheotomies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d he says toward the end of \u201cVal,\u201d the 2021 documentary on his career. \u201cAnd I am blessed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kilmer, the youngest actor ever accepted to the prestigious Juilliard School at the time he attended, experienced the ups and downs of fame more dramatically than most. His break came in 1984\u2019s spy spoof \u201cTop Secret!\u201d followed by the comedy \u201cReal Genius\u201d in 1985. Kilmer would later show his comedy chops again in films including \u201cMacGruber\u201d and \u201cKiss Kiss Bang Bang.\u201d<\/p>\n

His movie career hit its zenith in the early 1990s as he made a name for himself as a dashing leading man, starring alongside Kurt Russell and Bill Paxton in 1993\u2019s \u201cTombstone,\u201d as Elvis\u2019 ghost in \u201cTrue Romance\u201d and as a bank-robbing demolition expert in Michael Mann\u2019s 1995 film \u201cHeat\u201d with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile working with Val on \u2018Heat\u2019 I always marvelled at the range, the brilliant variability within the powerful current of Val\u2019s possessing and expressing character,\u201d director Mann said in a statement Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

Actor Josh Brolin, a friend of Kilmer, was among others paying tribute.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou were a smart, challenging, brave, uber-creative firecracker,\u201d Brolin wrote on Instagram. \u201cThere\u2019s not a lot left of those.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kilmer \u2013 who took part in the Method branch of Suzuki arts training \u2013 threw himself into parts. When he played Doc Holliday in \u201cTombstone,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

That intensity also gave Kilmer a reputation that he was difficult to work with, something he grudgingly agreed with later in life, but always defending himself by emphasizing art over commerce.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn an unflinching attempt to empower directors, actors and other collaborators to honor the truth and essence of each project, an attempt to breathe Suzukian life into a myriad Hollywood moments, I had been deemed difficult and alienated the head of every major studio,\u201d he wrote in his memoir, \u201cI\u2019m Your Huckleberry.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of his more iconic roles \u2013 hotshot pilot Tom \u201cIceman\u201d Kazansky opposite Tom Cruise \u2013 almost didn\u2019t happen. Kilmer was courted by director Tony Scott for \u201cTop Gun\u201d but initially balked. \u201cI didn\u2019t want the part. I didn\u2019t care about the film. The story didn\u2019t interest me,\u201d he wrote in his memoir. He agreed after being promised that his role would improve from the initial script. He would reprise the role in the film\u2019s 2022 sequel, \u201cTop Gun: Maverick.\u201d<\/p>\n

One career nadir was playing Batman in Joel Schumacher\u2019s goofy, garish \u201cBatman Forever\u201d with Nicole Kidman and opposite Chris O\u2019Donnell\u2018s Robin \u2013 before George Clooney took up the mantle for 1997\u2019s \u201cBatman & Robin\u201d and after Michael Keaton played the Dark Knight in 1989\u2019s \u201cBatman\u201d and 1992\u2019s \u201cBatman Returns.\u201d<\/p>\n

Janet Maslin in the Times<\/em> said Kilmer was \u201chamstrung by the straight-man aspects of the role,\u201d while Roger Ebert deadpanned that he was a \u201ccompletely acceptable\u201d substitute for Keaton. Kilmer, who was one and done as Batman, blamed much of his performance on the suit.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re in it, you can barely move and people have to help you stand up and sit down,\u201d he said in \u201cVal,\u201d in lines spoken by his son Jack, who voiced the part of his father in the film because of his inability to speak. \u201cYou also can\u2019t hear anything, and after a while people stop talking to you, it\u2019s very isolating. It was a struggle for me to get a performance past the suit, and it was frustrating until I realized that my role in the film was just to show up and stand where I was told to.\u201d<\/p>\n

His next projects were the film version of the 1960s TV series \u201cThe Saint\u201d \u2013 fussily putting on wigs, accents and glasses \u2013 and \u201cThe Island of Dr. Moreau\u201d with Marlon Brando, which became one of the decade\u2019s most infamously cursed productions.<\/p>\n

David Gregory\u2019s 2014 documentary \u201cLost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley\u2019s Island of Dr. Moreau,\u201d described a cursed set that included a hurricane, Kilmer bullying director Richard Stanley, the firing of Stanley via fax (who sneaked back on set as an extra with a mask on) and extensive rewrites by Kilmer and Brando. The older actor told the younger at one point: \u201c\u2018It\u2019s a job now, Val. A lark. We\u2019ll get through it.\u2019 I was as sad as I\u2019ve ever been on a set,\u201d Kilmer wrote in his memoir.<\/p>\n

In 1996, Entertainment Weekly<\/em> ran a cover story about Kilmer titled \u201cThe Man Hollywood Loves to Hate.\u201d The directors Schumacher and John Frankenheimer, who finished \u201cThe Island of Dr. Moreau,\u201d said he was difficult. Frankenheimer said there were two things he would never do: \u201cClimb Mount Everest and work with Val Kilmer again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other artists came to his defense, like D.J. Caruso, who directed Kilmer in \u201cThe Salton Sea\u201d and said the actor simply liked to talk out scenes and enjoyed having a director\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

\u2033Val needs to immerse himself 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, \u2018You\u2019re Batman! Just go do it,\u2019\u201d Caruso told the Times<\/em> in 2002.<\/p>\n

After \u201cThe Island of Dr. Moreau,\u201d the movies were smaller, like David Mamet human-trafficking thriller \u201cSpartan\u201d; \u201cJoe the King\u201d in 1999, in which he played a paunchy, abusive alcoholic; and playing the doomed \u201970s porn star John Holmes in 2003\u2019s \u201cWonderland.\u201d He also threw himself into his one-man stage show \u201cCitizen Twain,\u201d in which he played Mark Twain.<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoy the depth and soul the piece has that Twain had for his fellow man and America,\u201d he told Variety<\/em> in 2018. \u201cAnd the comedy that\u2019s always so close to the surface, and how valuable his genius is for us today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kilmer spent his formative years in the Chatsworth neighborhood of Los Angeles. He attended Chatsworth High School alongside future Oscar winner Kevin Spacey and future Emmy winner Mare Winningham. At 17, he was the youngest drama student ever admitted at the Juilliard School in 1981.<\/p>\n

Shortly after he left for Juilliard, his younger brother, 15-year-old Wesley, suffered an epileptic seizure in the family\u2019s Jacuzzi and died on the way to the hospital. Wesley was an aspiring filmmaker when he died.<\/p>\n

\u201cI miss him and miss his things. I have his art up. I like to think about what he would have created. I\u2019m still inspired by him,\u201d Kilmer told the Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n

While still at Juilliard, Kilmer co-wrote and appeared in the play \u201cHow It All Began\u201d and later turned down a role in Francis Ford Coppola\u2019s \u201cThe Outsiders\u201d for the Broadway play \u201cSlab Boys,\u201d alongside Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn.<\/p>\n

Kilmer published two books of poetry (including \u201cMy Edens After Burns\u201d) and was nominated for a Grammy in 2012 for spoken word album for \u201cThe Mark of Zorro.\u201d He was also a visual artist and a lifelong Christian Scientist.<\/p>\n

He dated Cher, and married and divorced actor Joanne Whalley. He is survived by their two children, Mercedes and Jack.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no regrets,\u201d Kilmer told the AP in 2021. \u201cI\u2019ve witnessed and experienced miracles.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kilmer, seen here in 2014, died Tuesday night at age 65. (Associated Press file) LOS ANGELES \u2013 Val Kilmer, the brooding, versatile actor who played fan favorite Iceman in \u201cTop Gun,\u201d wore a voluminous cape as Batman in \u201cBatman Forever\u201d and portrayed Jim Morrison in \u201cThe Doors,\u201d has died. He was 65. Kilmer died […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22890,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1060,2482,1107],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-arts-entertainment","tag-celebrity","tag-movies"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22889"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}