Val Kilmer, an actor of characters as famous for his idiosyncrasies, since it was for his actions widely praised in successful films such as “Top Gun”, “Tombstone” and “Batman Forever”, he died at 65.
Kilmer died on Tuesday a devout Christian scientist who avoided traditional medical treatment in Los Angeles in Los Angeles. 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 without voice. He said in 2021 that he was free of cancer.
The actor jumped to fame in the 1980s as a prodigy trained in Juilliard with the potential of the main ones with his co -star of “Top Gun” Tom Cruise. At its peak, he courted Cher and Cindy Crawford, won $ 6 million per film and won the reputation of being almost impossible to work.
Kilmer was demanding about his work, ambivalent about fame and not willing to spend much time with the press. After his triumphant interpretation of Jim Morrison in the biographical film of Oliver Stone in 1991 “The Doors”, he moved to a vast ranch from New Mexico where he rode horses, raised buffalo and wrote poetry.
In the set, it was said that it could be petulant and exhausting, an attitude that alienated the directors and their co -star, including Marlon Brando on the set of “Dr. Moreau Island.”
After director Joel Schumacher concluded “Batman Forever,” he said, “I don't like Val Kilmer, I don't like his work ethics, and I don't want to be associated with him ever.”
Kilmer's reputation was such that the main roles decreased at the end of the 2000s after his last main performance acclaimed by critics, in the 2005 comedy “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” against Robert Downey Jr.
Plagued by the internal tax service, the unhappy neighbors and the bad audiences, Kilmer had to sell their ranch to pay the taxes and the backward maintenance of the children. After that, he dedicated himself in the course of a decade to “Citizen Twain”, a single -turning show that he wrote, directed and starred as a risen Mark Twain. He took the program to more than 30 cities over the years.
In large part before Tom Cruise's insistence, Kilmer repeated his role as Tom “Iceman” Kazansky in “Top Gun: Maverick”. It was the highest grossing film of 2022 and generally applauded for critics. Although he had to use AI -based dubbing technology to speak his lines, Kilmer's presence was enough for fans.
“At a fictional moment, it gives us something unequivocally, irreducibly real, partly by drilling the fantasy of human invincibility that its co -star has never stopped selling,” said Times's film critic, Justin Chang, about Kilmer's performance.
Born on December 31, 1959 in Los Angeles, Kilmer grew up in Chatsworth, one of the three brothers. His father born in Texas was industrial and real estate developer of San Fernando Valley. His mother was from a Swedish family. His parents divorced when he was 9 years old, and Kilmer and his brothers lived with his father.
When I was a child, Kilmer acted in school plays and appeared in television commercials. At 16, he was accepted in Juilliard's drama program. The night before going to New York, his younger brother had a seizure and fell into the family's backyard pool and drowned. Kilmer went from his brother's funeral directly to the acting school. 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 work “The Slab Boys”. He made his television debut in an “special ABC after school” about drunk driving, in front of a young Michelle Pfeiffer. Later, a book of poetry inspired by it was published, whose copies are now sold for $ 400.
Even at the beginning of his film career, Kilmer's elections were versatile and eccentric. He rejected a role in the beloved 1983 adaptation by Francis Ford Coppola of “The Outsiders” because he was committed to a play. He rejected David Lynch's offer of a paper in “Blue Velvet.”
Instead, he made his film debut as a rock star of the 1950s in the parody of the 1984 spy film “Top Secret!” And he released an album that covers the songs of the movie. Then, without saying a word, it disappeared for more than a year to go backpacking through Europe.
When he returned, Kilmer made his way as Cruise's rival naval pilot in the success of 1986 “Top Gun”. That followed playing a dishonored gentleman in Ron Howard's fantasy in 1987 “Willow”. Howard then called Kilmer “Infant” and “Impossible.”
But it wasn't until Kilmer portrayed Jim Morrison who obtained the status of film star. Stone said at that moment that he chose him because he liked his “implicit arrogance.”
To prepare, Kilmer spent a year at Sunset Strip Clubs dressed as a rock star and memorized the lyrics of all Morrison's songs. In the film, he performed 15 songs so convincing that the remaining members of the doors said they could not distinguish their Morrison voice.
During the next few years, Kilmer was critically praised as the alcoholic gunman Doc Holliday in the western “tombstone” of 1993. Just before filming began, his father died of cancer.
Michael Biehn said that his co -star divered himself as deeply in his character as Doc Holliday that Val Kilmer ceased to exist.
“People ask me what to work with Val Kilmer. I don't know. I never met him. He never shook his hand. I know Doc Holliday, but I don't know Kilmer.”
In 1995, Kilmer starred in the superhero in “Batman Forever”, which raised $ 336 million. But later, director Schumacher called him “one of the most psychologically problems with whom I have worked.” That same year, he obtained praise as Robert de Niro's henchman in Michael Mann's criminal drama “Heat.”
But Kilmer's reputation never recovered completely after the disaster of the manufacture of movements of 1996 “The island of Dr. Moreau”. Both directors of that film promised to work with him again.
Kilmer continued to appear in a variety of films, but mainly in minor cameos and roles. In 2020, he published his memoirs, “i'm Your Huckleberry”, a raw and sincere journey through the extremes of his life. The Washington Post described it as “a journey in Zigzaggging through the life and distinctive career of Kilmer, written by a spiritual narrator without qualms about enjoying its eccentricities.”
He went to his reputation made in front of the success of sales.
“In an unwavering attempt to empower directors, actors and other collaborators to honor the truth and essence of each project, an attempt to breathe Suzukian's life in a myriad of Moments of Hollywood, they had considered me difficult and alienated at the head of each important study,” he wrote.
Kamp Kilmer also opened an artistic collective in Hollywood that provided space and company for poets, painters, musicians and filmmakers. He often began and ended his days in the studio in Melrose Avenue.
“With little voice, my creative juices were boiling and leaving me,” Kilmer wrote on the group's website. “I started creating again, painting, writing everything I could. I felt that art cured me.”
Kilmer survivors include their daughter Mercedes and their son Jack.
Piccalo is a former Los Angeles Times personnel writer.
