Five things to know about late actor Val Kilmer

American actor Val Kilmer died of pneumonia on April 1 at age 65, his daughter Mercedes told The New York Times.

Here are five things to know about Kilmer, best known for movies such as Top Gun (1986) and Batman Forever (1995).

1. Shaped by brother’s death

Kilmer was born on New Year’s Eve, 1959, in Los Angeles, to parents Eugene and Gladys, who divorced in 1968 when he was nine. Kilmer had one older brother Mark and one younger brother Wesley, who died at the age of 15 in 1977 due to drowning.

The tragedy was said to have haunted Kilmer for years and inspired one of his acting roles in the film The Salton Sea (2002), in which he played a man ridden with guilt after his wife’s death.

According to an interview with The New York Times in 2002, Kilmer described his late brother as an aspiring, talented film-maker who could have been another Steven Spielberg or George Lucas.

At 17, Kilmer became the youngest student in his time to be accepted into the famed Juilliard School’s Drama Group shortly after his brother’s death.

2. Top Gun breakthrough  

He made his film debut in the spy spoof Top Secret! (1984) before appearing in the science-fiction comedy Real Genius (1985). His big-screen break came in 1986 with the action drama Top Gun, which also catapulted actor Tom Cruise to fame.

In it, Kilmer played arrogant fly-boy Tom “Iceman” Kazansky, one of the top students in the US Navy Fighter Weapons School, also known as TopGun. He was the rival-turned-wingman of Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, played by Cruise.

Kilmer reprised the role of Iceman in the 2022 sequel Top Gun: Maverick, in which the character was an admiral in the US Navy and the commander of the US Pacific Fleet.

3. Superhero outing

Kilmer played superhero Batman in late director Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever (1995). He replaced American actor Michael Keaton, who had played the caped crusader in two earlier films, Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992).

Kilmer received mixed reviews for his turn as the Dark Knight, with the loud and bloated movie also starring actors Tommy Lee Jones as the villain Two-Face and Jim Carrey as the villain The Riddler. He was replaced by American actor George Clooney in the next Batman movie Batman & Robin (1997).

4. ‘Difficult’ reputation

Kilmer had a reputation for being difficult and was known to clash with directors, including John Frankenheimer on the set of science-fiction film The Island Of Dr Moreau (1996). Schumacher called Kilmer “psychotic” in an interview after the filming of Batman Forever.

Kilmer acknowledged his unfortunate reputation while taking part in a Reddit Ask Me Anything session in 2017, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

“I didn’t do enough hand holding and flattering and reassuring to the financiers,” he said. “I only cared about the acting and that didn’t translate to caring about the film or all that money.”

5. Throat cancer

Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014. He initially denied it, even claiming that his friend, actor Michael Douglas, was “misinformed” when the latter disclosed it in 2016.

He finally admitted to his battle with cancer in 2017, during a question-and-answer session with fans on the Reddit website, saying: “I did have a healing of cancer, but my tongue is still swollen although healing all the time.”

His health issue was evident when he made a cameo in Top Gun: Maverick, with the character dying from terminal cancer.

“It’s time to let go,” Iceman tells Maverick in one poignant scene. The role was also Kilmer’s final film role.