BroadwayWorld is saddened to report the passing of Val Kilmer at the age of 65. The actor died on April 1 from pneumonia. Throughout his career, the Hollywood star appeared in many prominent films, including Top Gun, Willow, and an acclaimed performance as singer Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s The Doors.
Kilmer was admitted to the acting program of Juilliard at age 17, making the performer one of the youngest students in the program’s history. His Broadway debut came in 1983 with The Slab Boys, a production that also starred Sean Penn and Kevin Bacon. Later stage roles included a production of Hamlet at Colorado Shakespeare Festival and ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore, at the Public Theater in 1992. He also starred in The Ten Commandments: The Musical as Moses, which made its premiere in Hollywood in 2004.
Despite his work on the stage, the actor was best known for his film career, which began in 1984 with the comedy Top Secret!, directed by David and Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams. The following year, he appeared in the comedy Real Genius before taking on dramatic roles as “Iceman” in Top Gun, Madmartigan in Ron Howard’s Willow, and the crime thriller Kill Me Again. Throughout the 1990s, he showed off his range in the western flick Tombstone, in Tony Scott and Quentin Tarantino’s True Romance, and taking on Batman in the 1995 film Batman Forever.
In DreamWorks’ animated musical The Prince of Egypt, featuring songs by Stephen Schwartz, Kilmer lent his voice to the dual roles of both Moses and God. He continued to star in films in the 2000s, notably Oliver Stone’s Alexander and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. He was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2015 but later overcame the disease. His final projects were Val, a documentary about his life and career, and 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick, which saw the performer reprise his iconic role of “Iceman.”
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