Val Kilmer, Star of ‘Top Gun’ and ‘Batman Forever,’ Dies at 65

One of Hollywood’s biggest stars of the 1990s — an actor whose range encompassed everything from broad comedy to dark thrillers to the Dark Knight himself — has died.

According to The New York Times, Val Kilmer passed away on Tuesday in Los Angeles. The paper also noted “the cause was pneumonia, said his daughter, Mercedes Kilmer. Mr. Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014 and later recovered, she said.” Kilmer was only 65 years old.

Born on New Year’s Eve 1959 in Los Angeles, Kilmer attended the Julliard School, where he studied drama as one of the youngest students in the program’s history. While he was mostly known in his heyday as a leading man with a rock star’s charisma and good looks, his breakthrough came in an exceedingly silly comedy, playing the lead in 1984’s Top Secret!, the Zucker brothers and Jim Abrahams’ follow-up to their hit spoof Airplane! 

Where that movie mocked disaster pictures, Top Secret! was a genial send-up of Elvis Presley movies, with Kilmer cast as an Elvis-esque American pop star named Nick Rivers who gets mixed up in some Cold War intrigue.

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Kilmer followed that with the sci-fi comedy Real Genius. One year after that, his career hit another early height when he played Tom Cruise’s ultimate frenemy Iceman in Top Gun. Kilmer played the cool-under-pressure star student who perpetually butts heads with Cruise’s appropriately nicknamed Maverick. Naturally, by the end of the film they become best bros.

In 1991, Kilmer landed the role of rock legend Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s biopic The Doors. Although the film was not warmly received by critics and was not a huge financial hit, Kilmer was uncanny as the Doors’ charismatic frontman.

Four years later (and the same year he also played a key supporting role in Heat, one of the ’90s best action films), Kilmer replaced Michael Keaton as the star of the enormously successful Batman movie franchise. His one outing as the Caped Crusader, 1995’s Batman Forever, was not as well-reviewed as Batman or Batman Returns, and Kilmer did not return for the sequel, but the movie was a huge hit anyway, grossing over $335 million in theaters. Whatever else the movie’s flaws, and no matter how much his relatively low-key performance might have been overshadowed by his bombastic co-stars Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones, Kilmer made a compelling Batman.

Schumacher and Kilmer did not get along during the making of Batman Forever, with Schumacher later calling Kilmer “psychotic” while also conceding he made a terrific Batman. The actor was often the subject of rumors that he was hard to work with. (His Wikipedia page includes a section called “Reputation” that just lists his various feuds with co-stars and directors.) But when Kilmer was on his game he made some very memorable films, including titles like Tombstone, The Prince of Egypt, Pollock, Wonderland, Spartan, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and MacGruber, where he played the title character’s arch-nemesis. (I am slightly afraid to write Kilmer’s character’s name, but you’ll here it in this clip.)

After working steadily into the 2010s, Kilmer’s health took a turn. For several years, he battled throat cancer, and although he ultimately recovered, two tracheotomies made it extremely difficult for him to speak. Despite his health struggles, Kilmer did reprise his role as Iceman in a surprisingly moving scene from 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick that nodded to Kilmer’s off-screen struggles. This wound up being his final performance.

Although Kilmer’s career and now his life were cut short by multiple illnesses, he leaves behind an incredible body of work. Most actors would do anything just to play one role like Top Secret!’s Nick Rivers, or Top Gun’s Iceman, or Willow’s Madmartigan, or Jim Morrison, or Tombstone’s Doc Holliday, or Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’s Perry, and on and on and on. Kilmer played all of them and so many more.