Val Kilmer dies aged 65

Val Kilmer has passed away aged 65.

The actor died of pneumonia on Tuesday in Los Angeles, his daughter Mercedes told US news outlets.

Born in Los Angeles in 1959, Kilmer became the youngest student to enrol at the prestigious Julliard drama school in New York when he was 17-years-old.

He went on to star in some of the most well-known film of the '80 and '90s, including Top Gun, Batman Forever, Tombstone and Heat. He also played the legendary Jim Morrison in the 1991 film The Doors.

In 2015 Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer. Surgery affected his voice and his acting career, though he did make a return in 2022 to reprise his role as Tom 'Iceman' Kazansky in Top Gun: Maverick.

In 2020, he published his memoir, I'm Your Huckleberry: A Memoir. The 2021 documentary film Val chronicled his health issues and career.

“I have to say that I don’t regret any of my personal choices or my career choices,” Kilmer told Hot Press in 2006. “I suppose I haven’t been career orientated or at least not success orientated. I just want to challenge myself as an actor. I just did theatre here in London and a documentary on Brando for the BBC because those were things I wanted to do. And when I made that documentary I was looking at Brando’s career and thinking he did seventeen flops in a row and then he did Godfather. If you follow your instincts, I think it’ll always come good.”

Heat director Michael Mann posted a tribute to Kilmer on Instagram.

"While working with Val on Heat I always marvelled at the range, the brilliant variability within the powerful current of Val's possessing and expressing character," Mann wrote.

"After so many years of Val battling disease and maintaining his spirit, this is tremendously sad news."