Iconic actor Val Kilmer, who last appeared in “Top Gun: Maverick” in 2022, died Tuesday night. Kilmer’s daughter, Mercedes Kilmer, 33, confirmed the actor’s death in an email to the Associated Press.
According to his daughter, Kilmer died of pneumonia following a decades-long battle with throat cancer and was surrounded by friends and family at the time of his death. He was 65.
The New York Times was first to report the news. Kilmer was best known for his role as Iceman in “Top Gun” (1986), but also portrayed Jim Morrison in “The Doors” (1991) and Batman in “Batman Forever” (1995). He also starred in “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” (2005), “Heat” (1995), “Willow” (1988) and “True Romance” (1993), per IMDb.
“In the brief time I spent with him on set he was nothing but kind, joyous and playful. I felt lucky to be in the same room,” actor Danny Ramirez, who starred alongside Kilmer in “Maverick,” wrote on Instagram.
Director Michael Mann described Kilmer as “brilliant” in a statement shared with USA TODAY.
“While working with Val on ‘Heat’ I always marveled at the range, the brilliant variability within the powerful current of Val’s possessing and expressing character,” Mann wrote. “After so many years of Val battling disease and maintaining his spirit, this is tremendously sad news,” he added.
In his 2021 film “Val,” Kilmer revealed that he was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2015 — though his daughter confirmed with AP that the diagnosis came in 2014. He had previously discussed his recovery in an April 2017 “Ask Me Anything” session on Reddit after his “The Ghost and the Darkness” co-star Michael Douglas spilled the news a year prior.
“Val was a wonderful guy who is dealing with exactly what I had, and things don’t look too good for him,” Douglas, who was treated for throat cancer in 2010, said of Kilmer in a Q&A session in London in 2016.
Later that week, Kilmer described Douglas as “misinformed” in an essay posted to Facebook in 2016.
During his 2017 Reddit session, Kilmer clarified that Douglas “was probably trying to help me ‘cause press probably asked where I was these days.” He later confirmed in a December 2017 interview with The Hollywood Reporter that he was diagnosed with throat cancer two years prior. Kilmer’s treatment included two tracheotomies, according to AP, hindering his ability to speak properly and clearly. In his 2020 memoir, “I’m Your Huckleberry,” Kilmer discussed the “struggle” of saying goodbye to one of his greatest traits.
“Speaking, once my joy and lifeblood, has become an hourly struggle. The instrument over which I had complete mastery is now out of my control,” he wrote in the memoir.
“Top Gun: Maverick” director Joseph Kosinski later admitted that Kilmer’s voice was “digitally altered and blended a little bit just for clarity,” but reiterated that it was nearly 100% Kilmer, per USA TODAY. “When I speak now, I sound like Marlon Brando after a couple of bottles of tequila,” Kilmer added in his memoir. “
It isn’t a frog in my throat. More like a buffalo.” Also in the memoir, Kilmer credited his ex-flame Cher, whom he dated in the 1980s, with helping him through the cancer diagnosis, per USA TODAY. Kilmer later met actress Joanne Whalley in 1987.
The couple married in 1988 and welcomed two children — daughter Mercedes, born in 1991, and son Jack, born in 1995 — before splitting in 1996. Kilmer’s dating history also included actress Ellen Barkin, supermodel Cindy Crawford, producer Jaycee Gossett, actress Lesley Ann Warren, actress Daryl Hannah and actress Angelina Jolie, per People.