Val Kilmer, a character actor as famous for his idiosyncrasies as for his performances widely rented in successful films such as “Top Gun”, “Tombstone” and “Batman Forever”, died at 65 years.
According to Kilmer Tuesday in Los Angeles New York Times. The actor's daughter, Mercedes Kilmer, told the newspaper that the cause of death was pneumonia. Kilmer had been treated for throat cancer, a procedure that left him largely speechless. He said in 2021 that he was without cancer.
The actor became famous in the 1980s as a prodigy formed by Juilliard with a leading potential with his co-star of “Top Gun” Tom Cruise. At his peak, he courted Dear and Cindy Crawford, made $ 6 million per film and acquired the reputation of being almost impossible to work.
Kilmer was ridicuing his work, ambivalent on glory and little inclined to spend a lot of time with the press. After his triumphant representation of Jim Morrison in the 1991 biopic of Oliver Stone “The doors“, He moved to a vast ranch of the New Mexico where he rose on horseback, raised Buffalo and wrote poetry.
On the set, it was said that it could be petulant and exhausting, an attitude that alienated the directors and its co-stars, including Marlon Brando on the set of “the island of Dr Moreau”.
After Director Joel Schumacher envelope “Batman forever“, He said,” I don't like Val kilmer, I don't like his work ethics, and I never want to be associated with him again. »»
The reputation of Kilmer was such that the star roles decreased in the late 2000s after his last head performance acclaimed by criticism, in the comedy of 2005 “Kiss Kiss Bang” opposite Robert Downey Jr.
In prey to the internal income from service, unhappy neighbors and bad public relations, Kilmer had to sell his ranch to reimburse taxes and suffer from child support for children. After that, he devoted himself during a decade to “Citizen Twain”, a program in one man he wrote, directed and played as a risen Mark Twain. He has made the show in more than 30 cities over the years.
Largely on the insistence of Tom Cruise, Kilmer has resumed his role As Tom “Iceman” Kazansky in “Top Gun: Maverick”. It was the most profitable film of 2022 and generally applauded by critics. Although he had to use dubbing technology based on AI to speak his lines, the presence of kilmer was sufficient for fans.
“In a fictitious moment, he gives us something inconcency, irreducibly real, partly by puncturing the fantasy of human invincibility that his co-star has never stopped trying to sell,” said Times Cinema Cinema Justin Chang about the performance of Kilmer.
Born on December 31, 1959 in Los Angeles, Kilmer grew up in Chatsworth, one of the three brothers. His father born in Texas was an industrialist and a real estate developer in San Fernando Valley. His mother was from a Swedish family. His parents divorced at the age of 9, and Kilmer and his brothers lived with their father.
As a boy, Kilmer played in school parts and appeared in television advertisements. At 16, he was accepted on the Juilliard theater program. At night before his departure for New York, his younger brother had a crisis and fell into the back-and-and-family swimming pool and drowned. Kilmer has gone from the funeral of his brother directly to the school of actor. He said he never completely recovered from the loss.
In New York, Kilmer appeared outside Broadway with Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn in the 1983 play “The Slab Boys”. He made his debut on television in an “ABC Afterrschool Special” on drunken driving, opposite a young Michelle Pfeiffer. Later, he self-published a poetry book inspired by her, whose copies are now sold for $ 400.
Even at the start of his cinematographic career, kilmer’s choices were versatile and eccentric. He refused a role in the beloved adaptation of Francis Ford Coppola in 1983 of “The Outsiders” because he was engaged in a play. He refused David Lynch's offer of a role in “Blue Velvet”.
Instead, he made his cinema debut as Rock Star from the 1950s in the 1984 spy film “Top secret!” And released an album covering the song songs. Then, without a word, he disappeared for more than a year to hike across Europe.
On his return, Kilmer pierced while the Rival naval pilot of Cruise during the 1986 hit “Top Gun”. He followed this by playing a knight in disgrace in the fantasy of Ron Howard in 1987 “Willow”. Howard later called “childish” and “impossible”.
But it was only when Kilmer described Jim Morrison that he won the status of cinema. Stone said at the time that he threw him because he loved his “implicit arrogance”.
To prepare, Kilmer spent a year in the Sunset Strip-Tease clubs disguised as Rock Star and memorized the words of all the songs of Morrison. In the film, he performed 15 songs so convincing, the other members of the Doors said that they could not distinguish his voice from Morrison.
In the coming years, Kilmer has been critically praised as a Doc Holliday alcoholic spokesman in the west of 1993 “Tombstone. “Just before filming, his father died of cancer.
Michael Biehn said that his co-star collaborated so deep in his character that Doc Holliday that Val Kilmer ceased to exist.
“People ask me what it is to work with Val Kilmer. I don't know. I have never met him. I never shook her hand. I know that Doc Holliday, but I don't know kilries. ”
In 1995, Kilmer played the role of superheroes of “Batman Forever”, which brought in $ 336 million. But later, director Schumacher called him “one of the most psychologically troubled people with whom I have ever worked”. The same year, he won praise as a holder of Robert de Niro in the criminal drama of Michael Mann “Heat”.
But the reputation of Kilmer has never completely restored itself after the catastrophe of the creation of films from 1996 “Dr Moreau Island. “The two directors of this film have sworn not to work with him again.
Kilmer continued to appear in a range of films but especially in the cameos and minor roles. In 2020, he published his Memoirs, “I'm Your Huckleberry”, a raw and frank journey through the extremes of his life. The Washington Post described it as “a zigzagging stroll through the distinct life and career of Kilmer, written by an unscrupulous spiritual storyteller to engage in his eccentricities.”
He addressed his reputation in tatters in the bestseller.
“In an unwavering attempt to allow directors, actors and other collaborators to honor the truth and the essence of each project, an attempt to breathe Suzukian life in a myriad of Hollywood moments, I was considered difficult and alienated the head of each big studio,” he wrote.
He also opened Kamp Kilmer, an artistic collective in Hollywood which provided space and the company for poets, painters, musicians and filmmakers. He often started and ended his days at the studio on Melrose Avenue.
“With Little Voice, my creative juices boiled and poured me,” wrote Kilmer on the collective website. “I started to create, to paint, to write everything I could. I felt art cure me. “
The survivors of Kilmer include the girl Mercedes and her son Jack.
Piccalo is a former Los Angeles Times staff editor.
