New York: Tributes, both online and physical, are continuing to flow for renowned screen and stage actor Val Kilmer, who passed away at the age of 65. His daughter Mercedes Kilmer confirmed on Wednesday that the actor died of pneumonia.
Kilmer portrayed intense characters like Bruce Wayne in Batman Forever and Thomas ‘Iceman’ Kazansky in Top Gun and Top Gun: Maverick.
In an obituary published by BBC, Kilmer has been described as an actor who was often underrated. According to the obituary, he had extraordinary range: excelling in comedies, westerns, crime dramas, musical biopics and action-adventure films alike.
“And perhaps his best performance combined his skills as a stage actor with a fine singing voice, to bring to life 1960s-counterculture icon Jim Morrison, in Oliver Stone’s film The Doors,” BBC states.
It also quotes critic Roger Ebert as saying: “If there is an award for the most unsung leading man of his generation, Val Kilmer should get it. In movies as different as Real Genius, Top Gun, Top Secret!, he has shown a range of characters so convincing that it’s likely most people, even now, don’t realise they were looking at the same actor.”
Kilmer started his career on stage with minor parts in Henry IV Part 1 and As You Like It, followed by a meatier role as Alan Downie in the 1983 production of Slab Boys, with Sean Penn and Kevin Bacon.
Kilmer made his film debut in the spy spoof Top Secret!, written by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker. He played star Nick Rivers, sucked into an East German plot to reunify Germany. The film proved Kilmer had a good voice and he later released an album under the name of his fictional character.
It was in the 1990s that Kilmer proved he could carry a major film as a lead actor. Director Oliver Stone had long wanted to make a biopic of The Doors, focusing on the band’s singer Jim Morrison, who died of a drugs overdose in 1971. Kilmer was selected for the role and in his trademark single-minded approach, lost weight and learned 50 Doors songs by heart.
In his 1996 biography of Oliver Stone, James Riordan said that the surviving Doors band members could not tell recordings of Kilmer singing their songs from Morrison’s original.
Kilmer also published a book of poetry ‘My Edens After Burns’, Some of the poems reflect on a relationship he had with a young Michelle Pfeiffer.
