Some horrible news to start the day. Actor Val Kilmer has died at the age of just 65, it’s been announced,
Just awful news, this. Actor Val Kilmer has died, at the age of just 65. It’s no secret that he’d been diagnosed with cancer of the throat just over ten years ago, but still: reading the news coming in overnight is a terrible shock.
According to a report at the New York Times, the cause of his death has been attributed to pneumonia. He leaves behind one heck of a body of a work, and no shortage of film stories too.
Top Secret! was his movie debut, the film that the Zucker Abrahams Zucker team made after Airplane!. It remains a sublimely funny piece of work, with a superb performance at the heart of it.
Of course, from there, Kilmer built up a career with a collection of memorable roles. His highest profile performance was arguably Bruce Wayne/Batman in Batman Forever, and his most acclaimed probably Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s The Doors. But then in the competition for favourites remain his performances in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, True Romance, Heat and Tombstone.
His final film role, as it turned out, was reprising the character of Iceman in the megahit Top Gun: Maverick. The 2022 movie gave him what turned into a fitting send-off on screen. It was a pleasing coda to 1986’s Top Gun too.
Kilmer certainly drew plenty of tabloid headlines in the 1990s, and he headlined a candid documentary about his life, Val, back in 2021. Yet it all still feels a bit odd and wrong that he’s gone, even appreciating he’s left so much behind.
Our thoughts, as always, go to his friends and family who must be having such an awful time at the moment. Hopefully they can take some solace from the tributes that are rolling in.
Rest in peace, Val Kilmer.
