Val Kilmer, the iconic actor brought to public attention by Top Gun in 1986, died this Tuesday, April 1st, at the age of 65. The actor did not survive the cancer he had been suffering from for several years.
Val Kilmer has left us
His daughter Mercedes informed our colleagues at the New York Times of her father's passing this Tuesday, April 1st, when he was only 65 years old. Val Kilmer had been battling laryngeal cancer for several years, diagnosed in 2015 and shared with the general public in April 2017. In his memoir, I'm Your Huckleberry, the actor explained his long battle with the disease. After a tracheotomy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy left him very weakened, the actor was in remission, and had agreed to reprise his role as Iceman in Top Gun 2, one of the biggest cinematic successes of 2022. Unable to speak, Val Kilmer was dubbed by artificial intelligence for the needs of the film. This is his last role on the big screen...
From Batman Forever to Heat, Val Kilmer's rich filmography
"Handsome face", Val Kilmer was a personality with a difficult character, whose stage partners complained about his complicated temperament. Despite everything, the actor made films that will remain forever etched in the history of the Seventh Art. In 1988, he starred in Willow, the cult feature film recently spun off into a series by Disney+, then in 1991, he played Jim Morrison in The Doors, a remarkable performance for which he memorized all of the artist's songs before the audition, and wore clothes similar to the musician's for a year. He then starred in Tombstone in 1993, then Heat and Batman Forever in 1995, one of the worst adaptations of the Bruce Wayne comics. With The Island of Dr. Moreau in 1996, Val Kilmer's reputation as an enfant terrible was such that director John Frankenheimer declared, "There are two things I will never do in my entire life. The first is that I will never climb Mount Everest. The second is that I will never work with Val Kilmer again."
Among his latest cult films, we should note Shane Black's Kiss kiss, bang bang in 2005, opposite Robert Downey Jr., then Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call in New Orleans in 2009, and Irish Gangster in 2011.
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