Val Kilmer, the charismatic actor and artist best known for his roles in Top Gun and Batman Forever, died at 65 on April 1st. His daughter, Mercedes, confirmed that Kilmer passed due to complications from pneumonia.
“If there is an award for the most unsung leading man of his generation, Val Kilmer should get it,” film critic Robert Ebert once wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times. Kilmer showcased his eccentric charisma as a scene-stealing supporting actor in films such as Michael Mann’s crime thriller Heat or the gunslinging Western Tombstone, as well as appearances as a leading man in films such as Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever. While his acting prowess may have been underappreciated, his visual art was even less known.
Diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014, he ultimately overcame the disease but not without losing his voice. After his cancer diagnosis, Kilmer increasingly turned his attention to his painting practice, the actor told W Magazine in 2017. That year, Kilmer experienced a breakthrough as an artist when New York’s Woodward Gallery mounted his solo show, “Valholla.” The exhibition, explained as a play on Valhalla, a concept from Norse mythology, and Kilmer’s Norse heritage, featured a series of abstract paintings on metal sheets, characterized by colorful enamel splashes.
Before this show, Kilmer had already painted for decades, and once presented a show in Tokyo in 2004 with the help of Yoko Ono. His work ranges from these kaleidescopic abstract paintings to representational works depicting Doc Holliday, his character in Tombstone, Batman, as well as one of his greatest inspirations, Mark Twain.
Born in Los Angeles in 1959, Kilmer was accepted into the Juilliard School’s Drama Division at 17 years old, becoming the youngest person at the time to be accepted into the program. He made his first on-screen appearance as a rockstar in the 1984 comedic spy film Top Secret, after declining a role in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders. Shortly after, Kilmer turned down David Lynch’s Blue Velvet before taking his breakout role in Top Gun, playing hot-headed fighter Lt. Tom “Iceman” Kazansky opposite Tom Cruise. He reprised the role in an emotional scene near the end of Top Gun: Maverick in 2022.
“I can’t tell you how much I admire his work, how grateful and honored I was when he joined Top Gun and came back later for Top Gun: Maverick,” Cruise said yesterday during a speech at CinemaCon in Las Vegas. “I think it would be really nice if we could have a moment [of silence] together because he loved movies and he gave a lot to all of us. Just kind of think about all the wonderful times that we had with him.”
Val Kilmer was also a published poet whose book, My Edens After Burns, self-published in 1983, reflected his varied interests. His fascination with stage acting is prominently showcased in the 2021 documentary Val. This film, which highlights Kilmer’s health struggles post-tracheotomy, features home movies taken by his parents of his early performances in school plays. In 1983, Kilmer graced the off-Broadway stage in The Slab Boys alongside Kevin Bacon, Sean Penn, and Jackie Earle Haley.
Kilmer also harbored a longstanding fascination with Mark Twain, dedicating years to researching and writing a one-man play titled Citizen Twain, which he performed across the country starting in 2010. He portrayed Twain in the 2019 film Cinema Twain, which was based on this play, and in the 2014 film adaptation of Twain’s work, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
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