Beloved actor Val Kilmer wasn’t a veteran, but he was part of one of the most unintentionally successful U.S. military recruiting programs ever made: “Top Gun.”
Let’s be real: Most of the people who joined the U.S. armed forces wanting to be Tom Cruise’s Maverick actually became Val Kilmer’s Iceman. And there’s nothing wrong with that: He cares about safety, wants to bring all his men home and is every bit as good a pilot as Maverick — and unlike Maverick, Iceman actually got promoted.
Reprising Iceman was a role that incorporated Kilmer’s real-life throat cancer, a condition he was diagnosed with in 2014. He recovered, but lost much of his voice in the process. His death in Los Angeles on April 1, 2025, was caused by pneumonia, according to his daughter. He was 65 years old.
Kilmer was born in Los Angeles on Dec. 31, 1959. He attended Chatsworth High School in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley, but soon went to Julliard, where he was then the youngest person ever accepted to the drama division. From there, he would go on to a movie career that made film critic Roger Ebert call him “the most unsung leading man of his generation.”
Kilmer first appeared on the silver screen in the 1984 spoof comedy “Top Secret!” as a rock star-type who accidentally gets involved in a conspiracy to reunify Germany. But his first big-budget role came in 1986 when “Top Gun” director Tony Scott cast him as Tom “Iceman” Kazansky, foil to Cruise’s Pete “Maverick” Mitchell.
Kilmer followed his “Top Gun” success with 1988’s “Willow” and 1992’s “Thunderheart.” He reunited with Tony Scott for Quentin Tarantino’s “True Romance” in 1993. He played the ever-quotable Doc Holliday in 1993’s “Tombstone” so well that it sparked co-star Michael Biehn to declare: “People ask me what it’s like to work with Val Kilmer. I don’t know. Never met him. Never shook his hand. I know Doc Holliday, but I don’t know [Kilmer].”
In 1995, Kilmer became one more actor to portray Bruce Wayne and Batman on the big screen. Although “Batman Forever” was met with mixed reviews by critics, “Batman” creator Bob Kane told Cinescape that Kilmer’s Batman was the best (as of 1995).
Kilmer went on to co-star in Michael Mann’s “Heat” that same year, a role that accidentally produced his greatest contribution to the U.S. military after his role as Iceman in the form of the film’s ultra-realistic fire and movement sequence. Indeed, the sequence where Kilmer’s character runs out of bullets during the movie’s legendary gunfight scene and is forced to swap magazines was regularly shown to Marine Corps recruits on how to do so well under pressure. That’s the level of detail you get from a guy who learned to sing like Jim Morrison so well, even The Doors couldn’t tell it was actually Val Kilmer singing.
In 2021, directors Leo Scott and Ting Poo released the documentary film “Val” about Kilmer’s career and battle with throat cancer, using footage shot by the actor over the course of his life and Hollywood career. It is currently one of Kilmer’s highest-rated movies ever, and probably the best way to remember one of the most memorable, bankable stars of his day.
“I never had a business plan,” the actor once said. “I did, actually. I’m lying. My business plan was to get lucky, and I did; that was great. And then my second business plan was to get lucky again, and there, I faltered.”
Related: 7 Surprising Things We Learned About ‘Top Gun’ from Val Kilmer’s Documentary
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