Val Kilmer, the Hollywood actor who tasted fame as a leading man playing Jim Morrison and Batman, but whose multifaceted talent and elusive personality also made him a high-end supporting actor, died Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 65 years old, according to The New York Times, UNN writes.
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The cause was pneumonia, his daughter Mercedes Kilmer said. Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014 and later recovered, she said.
Tall and handsome as a rock star, Kilmer actually starred as a rocker several times early in his career. He made his feature film debut in the Cold War spy spoof "Top Secret!" (1984), in which he starred as an American singer who was popular with the public in Berlin, unwittingly involved in an East German plot to reunite the country.
He brightly and stylistically played Morrison, a symbol of psychedelic sensuality, in Oliver Stone's "The Doors" (1991), and also played a cameo role as the Mentor - giving advice to Elvis, as envisioned by the anti-hero protagonist of the film, played by Christian Slater - in the film "True Romance" (1993), a violent drug adventure written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott.
Perhaps most famously, along with Michael Keaton and George Clooney, he starred (and in a bat suit) in "Batman Forever" (1995), fighting in Gotham City with Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones) and the Riddler (Jim Carrey), although neither Kilmer nor the film were considered stellar representatives of the Batman franchise.
Throughout his career, Kilmer often left an impression of unpredictability on both audiences and filmmakers.
"Most actors recognize that there is something different about Val than meets the eye," Oliver Stone said in a 2007 interview for a segment of the television series "Biography." David Mamet, the playwright and screenwriter who directed Kilmer in the political thriller "Spartan" (2004), added: "Val as an actor has what really great actors have, namely, they make everything sound like improvisation."
In 2021, Kilmer became the subject of a documentary about him, "Val", based on decades of archival footage.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in 2012, Kilmer spoke about his absence from mainstream Hollywood for a decade or more and admitted that his career was unusual. He had other interests, he said; he wanted to spend time with his children.
"I don't regret anything," he said, adding: "It's a saying, but it's partly true: once you become a star, you remain one forever; the only question is at what level?"