Val Kilmer, who is best known for his roles in Top Gun and Batman Forever, passed away on Tuesday at the age of 65.
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The actor’s daughter, Mercedes, confirmed the news to The New York Times, revealing his cause of death was pneumonia.
Born on Dec. 31, 1959, Kilmer began acting in the early 1980s. His first cinema role was the 1984 action comedy Top Secret!
Two years later, he played opposite Tom Cruise in Top Gun as Lt. Tom “Iceman” Kazansky. He reprised the role in the 2022 sequel Top Gun: Maverick.
His other famous roles included Tombstone, The Doors, Heat, The Saint, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and Déjà Vu.
Val Kilmer was previously married to actress Joanne Whalley, who starred alongside him in Willow, from 1988 to 1996. They share Mercedes and son Jack.
Val Kilmer Battled Throat Cancer Before His Death
Val Kilmer had been struggling with his health throughout the past decade. In January 2015, he was hospitalized with a possible tumor. He confirmed he had been admitted to the hospital on social media.
“I have not had a tumor, or tumor operation, or any operation,” he said. “I had a complication where the best way to receive care was to stay under the watchful eye of the UCLA ICU.”
In 2017, Kilmer revealed to The Hollywood Reporter that he had experienced a “healing of cancer.” It was later confirmed that he had been battling throat cancer since 2014.
Despite initially declining medical treatment due to his Christian Scientist beliefs, Val Kilmer underwent chemotherapy and two tracheotomies. He eventually recovered.
While he continued to act amid his cancer battle, the actor had difficulty speaking, and his voice was dubbed over by other actors. To speak, he would plug an electric voice box into his trachea. He later worked with the software company Sonantic to recreate his voice using AI technology and archived recordings of his voice.
“It’s just like any other language or dialect,” he told Good Morning America in August 2020. “You have to figure out a way to communicate that’s no different than any other acting challenge, but it’s just a very unique set of circumstances.”