Hollywood Legend, Star Of 'Batman Forever' And 'Tombstone,' Val Kilmer, Has Passed Away At 65
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Val Kilmer, actor, playwright, singer and artist has passed away at only sixty-five years’ old. The 90s Hollywood A-Lister reportedly passed from pneumonia in his home state of Los Angeles. Kilmer was born on New Year’s Eve 1959 in L.A.
Kilmer was the middle child of three brothers, however Wesley, the youngest died in 1977 after an epileptic seizure at the family home. But it was Wesley’s example that inspired him to take up painting. “My little brother was a legitimate genius and he was born with a paintbrush in his hand.” Kilmer’s last exhibition of artwork opened at the Woodward Gallery in New York in the Autumn of last year.
At just seventeen years of age, Kilmer got accepted into Julliard in New York City. He was the youngest student (at the time) ever to attend the Performing Arts Conservatory. Val Kilmer wrote his own pieces for the audition but by his graduation, he had authored a full-length play, titled How it All Began. A company of Julliard students (including Kilmer) performed it at The Public Theater in New York that year. During the early 80s, Kilmer also self-published a book of poems titled My Eden After Burns, copies of which now sell for $300 upwards.
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After turning down working (he was already committed to a Broadway role) with Francis Ford Coppola on the brat pack flick, the Outsiders in 1983, Kilmer had to wait for three more years for another crack at Hollywood. A little Tom Cruise picture, by the name of Top Gun. Willow came two years later. But it was The Doors biopic that cemented him as a serious actor, rather than just another good-looking face to put on the posters. Although Kilmer’s portrayal of Jim Morrison was widely praised, he did not receive a single major award nomination.
In 1995, he got the call from DC and stepped into the batsuit for what was widely lauded as the worst Batman film of all time. But it didn’t seem to hurt his career, as Kilmer was one of the busiest men in Hollywood at that time, fronting classics like Heat, Tombstone, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. In 2019 he went behind the camera (as well as being in front of it) as the writer/director of Cinema Twain, a comedic love letter to Mark Twain.
Val Kilmer was accused of being difficult to work with, but the actor was always happy to face these rumors head on in interviews. Most of which he put down to the press being overzealous in their reporting.
Towards the end of his life, he was diagnosed with throat cancer. Despite his Christian Scientist beliefs, Val Kilmer fought it head-on. Unfortunately, the treatments made speaking very difficult and cut his acting career short.
He leaves behind his two children, Mercedes Kilmer and Jack Kilmer. Both have followed him into performing. Jack was cast in the TV adaption of Willow, where Val met the mother of his children, actress Joanna Whalley.
Val Kilmer had an incessant creative energy. He can be best encapsulated by this self-reported anecdote from one of Carrie Fisher’s Oscar parties.
“I was talking to Daniel Day-Lewis, but all I can do is look over his shoulder at Bob on the giant wooden balcony, all lonely and so famous that the most famous entertainers on earth aren’t approaching him… So in some kind of Morrison-inspired bravado, I shout over the entire party, over Daniel Day-Lewis, over David Geffen, over Warren Beatty: ‘Hey Bobbbbbb! Are you an Yma Sumac fan?’ Like that old EF Hutton commercial, the entire party turns to him – for real – and he yells back, after a perfect pause: ‘Yeees I am…’ and that was my ice-breaker.”
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Source(s): People, Julliard: Where It All Began, Val Kilmer, Newsweek, The Guardian, Hello, People, Wiki, IMDb
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