Hollywood star Val Kilmer – famed for iconic roles in Top Gun, Batman and The Doors – has died at 65 after a long health battle.

His daughter Mercedes Kilmer, whom he shared with ex-wife Joanne Whalley, revealed he passed from pneumonia in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

The screen icon was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014 and underwent surgery, including a tracheotomy which significantly impacted his ability to speak. He was later declared cancer free. 

Kilmer was known for his role as Iceman in the 1986 hit movie Top Gun and as Batman/Bruce Wayne in the 1995 Batman Forever. Despite his permanently damaged voice, he made a brief return to the screen in 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick.

He also famously played musician Jim Morrison in the 1991 film The Doors. 

Aside from Mercedes, 33, he is also survived by son Jack Kilmer, 29. Kilmer was married to their mother Joanne from 1988 until 1996.

Hollywood star Val Kilmer – famed for iconic roles in Top Gun, Batman and The Doors – has died at 65 after a long health battle; seen 2019 

The actor died from pneumonia; pictured in a 1986 still from Top Gun

Kilmer underwent both radiotherapy and chemotherapy for his cancer as well as a tracheostomy a procedure to create an artificial hole in this neck to help him breathe. 

The latter permanently damaged his vocal cords and consequentially forever altered his speaking voice. 

In the Amazon Prime documentary entitled Val, Kilmer spoke candidly about living with the consequences of throat cancer including having to use an electric device called a voice box on the artificial hole in his throat to talk.

‘I obviously am sounding much worse than I feel. I can’t speak without plugging this hole [in his throat],’ he said.

A voice box device is most commonly a battery-operated machine that produces sound to create a voice, and is used to help those suffering with throat cancer communicate.

The actor, who also had to have meals through a feeding tube, explained some of the other challenges.

‘You have to make the choice to breathe or to eat. It’s an obstacle that is very present with whoever sees me,’ he said.

Val’s son provided the voice-over narration of the documentary but his lines were written by Val himself. 

Kilmer has previously detailed how he was unaware he had throat cancer until one day he coughed up ‘coagulated blood’ and called for an ambulance before passing out.

His daughter Mercedes Kilmer, 33, whom he shared with ex-wife Joanne Whalley, confirmed his passing to the New York Times; Mercedes and Val in Los Angeles in 2019

The screen icon was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014; pictured in 2019

Kilmer underwent both radiotherapy and chemotherapy for his cancer as well as a tracheostomy a procedure to create an artificial hole in this neck to help him breathe

The latter permanently damaged his vocal cords and consequentially forever altered his speaking voice; seen with Angelina Jolie 

Kilmer was known for his role as Iceman in the 1986 hit movie Top Gun 

Despite his permanently damaged voice, he made a brief return to the screen in 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick  (pictured)

He also played Batman/Bruce Wayne in the 1995 Batman Forever

He then woke up in a Santa Monica hospital after an emergency tracheotomy for throat cancer. 

In 2020, Kilmer said he ‘healed very quickly’ following his throat cancer diagnosis, in an interview with Good Morning America.

‘This is a tracheotomy,’ he said while holding his hand to his throat, ‘to help me breathe because the glands in my throat swelled up as well’.

When asked what he misses the most about his voice, Kilmer told GMA: ‘That I had one! And that I didn’t laugh like a pirate.’

Kilmer was one of Hollywood’s most prominent leading men in the 1990s before numerous spats with directors and co-stars and a series of flops dented his career. 

Over the years, Kilmer gained a reputation as temperamental, intense, perfectionistic and sometimes egotistical. 

‘When certain people criticize me for being demanding, I think that’s a cover for something they didn’t do well. I think they’re trying to protect themselves,’ Kilmer told the Orange County Register newspaper in 2003.

‘I believe I’m challenging, not demanding, and I make no apologies for that.’

Aside from Mercedes, he is also survived by son Jack Kilmer, 29. Kilmer was married to their mother Joanne from 1988 until 1996; the siblings seen in 2021

He made his film debut starring in the spy spoof Top Secret! (1984) before appearing in the goofy comedy Real Genius (1985). 

He rocketed to stardom as Tom Cruise’s co-star in the smash 1986 hit Top Gun (1986), playing naval aviator Tom ‘Iceman’ Kazansky, and decades later appeared alongside Cruise again in the 2022 sequel Top Gun: Maverick.

Kilmer was thrilled for the opportunity to reprise his role as Iceman in Top Gun: Maverick.

The actor was famous for playing the calm, cool rival to Tom Cruise’s Maverick in the original 1986 film.

However, when the actor admitted in a 2013 interview will Larry King that he had not been approached about appearing in a proposed Top Gun sequel, Cruise reportedly rallied the troops to ensure his buddy was included.

In an interview with People, producer Jerry Bruckheimer declared, ‘Tom said he wasn’t going to make the movie without him.’

As such, once the final script was approved, it made allowances for Ice who had been promoted to Admiral to take part in the fun.

‘So the fact that he was able to do it and he worked with us on the script,’ explained the producer, ‘to have him there and be a part of it was a really emotional day when we filmed him. Because you want to see those two on the screen again, Iceman and Maverick going at it. And that’s what movie making and audiences love.’

That particular element is one that received high marks from critics and fans alike.

Kilmer was one of Hollywood’s most prominent leading men in the 1990s before numerous spats with directors and co-stars and a series of flops dented his career; seen in 1994

 Over the years, Kilmer gained a reputation as temperamental, intense, perfectionistic and sometimes egotistical; seen with Cher

‘I believe I’m challenging, not demanding, and I make no apologies for that,’ he said in 2003; pictured 1994

Val’s son, Jack recalled how ‘stoked’ his father was to be joining the cast.

‘[My sister,] Mercedes, and I went down to San Diego to that big naval base for the shoot with Tom Cruise and everyone. And there were hundreds of extras of real pilots coming up to us and telling us that the first Top Gun inspired them to join the Navy and the Air Force.’

‘It was one of the proudest moments of being American that you could think of really.’

Kilmer starred in director Ron Howard’s fantasy Willow (1988) and married his British co-star Joanne, with whom he had two children before divorcing.

One of his most challenging roles came in director Oliver Stone’s The Doors (1991) in which he played Jim Morrison, the charismatic and ultimately doomed lead singer of the influential rock band The Doors.

To try to persuade Stone to cast him, Kilmer put together an eight-minute video of himself singing and looking like Morrison at various points in his life. Kilmer’s own singing voice is used in the film.

The Doors ushered in the highest-profile years of his career. In the 1993 Western Tombstone, he played Old West gunfighter Doc Holliday.

He had two commercial successes in 1995, co-starring with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in the crime drama Heat and succeeding Michael Keaton as the Caped Crusader in Batman Forever, the third installment in the Batman series.

Batman Forever was received tepidly by critics, and Kilmer was upstaged by co-stars Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey. Kilmer pulled out of the next Batman movie.

Director Joel Schumacher called Kilmer ‘the most psychologically troubled human being I’ve ever worked with.’