The death of Val Kilmer, Hollywood’s unlikeliest star, shook the entertainment world on Wednesday. The 65-year-old died of pneumonia at his LA home on Tuesday night, the NYT reported citing his daughter. But Kilmer’s rise and fall amd resurgence as a Hollywood icon is nothing short of a fairytale. Once the highest-paid star of the 90s, Kilmer receded to Hollywood third-tier by the 2010s.
Val Kilmer’s rise to stardom
Although he began his career with Slab Boys in 1983, it was a supporting role in Tom Cruise-starrer Top Gun (1986) that made Kilmer a star. In 1991, he enhanced his fame with his most iconic performance – playing Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s The Doors. This began a streak of successful films, including Tombstone, Heat, and Batman Forever. The last of the lot established him as a box office draw, too. However, critics felt he was overshadowed by the antagonists Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey, forcing him to pull out of the sequel. For a brief period in the mid-90s, Kilmer was the highest-paid actor in the world, eclipsing Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger, before Tom Cruise and Johnny Depp surpassed him.
How Kilmer lost his mojo
But the 2000s proved to be disastrous for Kilmer. He starred in numerous flops, including Red Planet and Alexander. He was also labelled ‘difficult’ after several spats with directors and co-actors. “When certain people criticize me for being demanding, I think that’s a cover for something they didn’t do well. I think they’re trying to protect themselves,” Kilmer told the Orange County Register newspaper in 2003. “I believe I’m challenging, not demanding, and I make no apologies for that.”
When Val Kilmer ‘resigned’ from Hollywood
By the 2010s, Kilmer was a sporadic actor, appearing in very few films, and largely only in direct-to-video releases. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in 2012, Kilmer spoke about his absence from mainstream Hollywood for a decade and said; he wanted to hang out with his kids.
In 2015, he denied he had cancer after reports claimed he was battling with the illness, only to accept he had ‘healed’ from the disease two years later. But cancer persisted, as did Val Kilmer. He fought the illness even as he lost his voice. For an actor known for his delivery, it was a big blow. But Val Kilmer continued to act with an electric voice box placed in his trachea. He appeared in Jay and Silent Bob Reboot in 2019 and quite memorably reprised his role as Iceman in Top Gun: Maverick in 2022. This film, where he and Tom Cruise shared the screen for the first time in 36 years, marked Val Kilmer’s last on-screen appearance.
As tributes pour in following his death, many remark on what the actor could have been, had he had Tom Cruise’s hunger or Bruce Willis’ penchant for blockbusters. But the absence of those, with the presence of talent, was what made Val Kilmer so unique. As he told Hollywood Reporter in 2012: “I don’t have any regrets. It’s an adage, but it’s kind of true: Once you’re a star, you’re always a star. It’s just, at what level?”
(With Reuters inputs)
