Val Kilmer, film star known for ‘Top Gun,’ ‘Batman Forever’ and ‘Tombstone,’ dead at 65

Val Kilmer, a movie star in the 1980s and ‘90s who played everything from Batman to Doc Holliday, died on Tuesday, according to his daughter Mercedes Kilmer, who released a statement to the New York Times. He was 65.

Val Kilmer, a movie star in the 1980s and ‘90s who played everything from Batman to Doc Holliday, died on Tuesday, according to his daughter Mercedes Kilmer, who released a statement to the New York Times and the Associated Press. He was 65. The cause of death was pneumonia, Mercedes Kilmer told the media outlets. CNN has reached out to representatives for Kilmer and his family for comment. Kilmer had recovered from a 2014 throat cancer diagnosis that required tracheotomy surgery that altered his voice. He largely stepped away from acting, though he reprised his role as Tom “Iceman” Kazansky in the wildly successful and long-awaited film, “Top Gun: Maverick,” which released in 2022 after a two-year delay. Kilmer’s “Iceman” was the cocky but cool rival to Tom Cruise’s Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in the original film. The sequel deftly blended Kilmer’s off-screen health issues into the film’s story, giving it a real-life emotional layer. David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter’s chief film critic, wrote in his review that “Top Gun: Maverick’s” most “moving element comes during the brief screen time of Kilmer’s Iceman, whose health issues reflect those suffered by the actor in real life, generating resonant pathos.”