The American actor Val kilmerwhich reached popularity after getting into the skin of singer Jim Morrison or the Superhero Batman, and acting in films as box office as ‘Top Gun’ or ‘Tombstone’, has died in Los Angeles at age 65, the New York Times reported.
As reported by his daughter, Mercedes Kilmer, to the New York newspaper, the actor was diagnosed with throat cancer In 2014 and could recover but died Tuesday as a result of a pneumonia.
Kilmer took time to recognize – he did not until 2017 – that he suffered cancer, but He stopped denying that disease with an autobiographical documentary“Val”, which premiered at the Cannes Festival and in which he offered unpublished access to his state of health and intimacy.
Born in Los Angelesthe charismatic actor, with Rock star air performed rocker papers several times at the beginning of his career.
As the Times recalls, he debuted in the cinema with a humorous parody of spies of the cold war entitled “Top Secret! “(1984), where he played an American singer who pleased the public and moved his hips in Berlin, involved without knowing it in a plot of East Germany to gather the country.
Jim Morrison, Batman, Top Gun … his outstanding career as an actor
His role as the singer was memorable Jim Morrisonicon of psychedelic sensuality, in “The Doors” (1991) by director Oliver Stone, and got into the skin of mentor – a advisor imagined by the antihero protagonist of the film, played by Christian Slater – in “True Romance” (1993), a violent history of adventures on drugs written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott
He starred with Sam Shepard “Thunderheart“(1992), playing an FBI agent, and in”The Saint“(1997) was an elegant and cunning thief who plays the cat and mouse with the Russian mafia.
Maybe his most famous role with Michael Keaton and George Clooneywas the main role in “Batman Forever“(1995).
But by then, another facet of Kilmer’s career had already developed. In 1986, Tony Scott chose him for his first large -budget film, “Top Gun“(1986), a drama of adventures about Marina’s hunting pilots in training, in which he was the rival of the star of the film, Tom Cruise, with whom he would also participate in his sequel in 2022,” Top Gun: Maverick “.
He played the urban and wasteful gunman Doc Holliday in “Tombstone“(1993), a bloody western, along with Kurt Russell, Sam Elliott and Bill Paxton.
He was part of a band of thieves in “Heat“(1995) with a star cast that included Robert De Niro and El Pacino And he was a co -star, along with Michael Douglas, in “The Ghost and Darkness” (1996), a period film about the lions hunt set in Africa of the late nineteenth century.
In “Pollock“(2000), starring Ed Harris as the painter Jackson Pollock, he played his artist colleague, Kooning Willem. Also Filipo de Macedonia, the father of Alexander the Great (Colin Farrell), in the great epic of Oliver Stone,”Alexander“(2004).
In 2003 he embodied the porn star John Holmes in the movie “Wonderland“, And a year later he rolled, again under the orders of Oliver Stone, the war-Historic film Alejandro Magno, where he gave life to Philip II of Macedonia. That same year he also starred in the political thriller” Spartan “.
“Most actors recognize that Val has something different from what is seen with the naked eye“Stone said in a 2007 interview for a television series” Biography, “the New York Times recalls.
David Mametthe playwright and screenwriter who directed Kilmer in the political thriller “Spartan” (2004), added: “Val has something that the great actors have: it makes everything look improvised.”
