American actor Val Kilmer, who died on Tuesday at the age of 65, will be remembered as the ‘Iceman’ pilot, Tom Cruise’s rival in the blockbuster ‘Top Gun’, but he was a performer who stepped into the shoes of many other characters, from Batman to the singer Jim Morrison, through the elegant thief Santo or King Philip, father of Alexander the Great.
When he premiered his autobiographical documentary ‘VAL’ at Cannes in 2021, he let the world into his intimate life, in which he did not hesitate to acknowledge, as he did at first, that he suffered from throat cancer and that after operations and treatments he had to wear a tracheotomy tube, which he covered with an elegant scarf and that he could not speak normally.
“Now that I have difficulty expressing myself, I want to tell my story more than ever.” pointed out the interpreter in his documentary, in which he exhibited numerous videotapes that he himself recorded as a child with his family and mixed them with images of his work in the cinema for films such as ‘Top Gun’ (1986), ‘Willow’ (1988), the biopic of Jim Morrison, ‘The Doors’ (1991) or ‘Batman forever’ (1995).
He had no qualms about showing his family side, since the documentary, directed by Ting Poo and Leo Scoot, was co-produced and also starred his children, Mercedes and Jack, and shows his relationship with their mother, also actress Joanne Whalley, whom he met in the film ‘Willow’, until their divorce in 1996.
“Sensitive and intelligent, with the soul of a clown.”
Born in 1959in Los Angeles, he saw himself as a “sensitive and intelligent person, with the soul of a clown”. He always wanted to be an actor and at a very young age was accepted at the renowned Juilliard School of the Arts in New York.
He says goodbye to us-his daughter Mercedes told the New York Times that had recovered from cancer but died of pneumonia– an actor who, because of his physique, played leading roles, but who did not hesitate in 2005, under the orders of Oliver Stone (after filming together fifteen years earlier ‘The Doors’), to take on the role of King Philip, without an eye, lame and paranoid, for the film ‘Alexander the Great’.
He said then in his presentation in Madrid: “I prefer extreme roles, like this one. I never based my career on a physical image”.
At that time he lived quite isolated in his house, which he would later get into debt and sell, nestled in a mountain in New Mexico, where he said he felt distanced from Hollywood and its successes, which he said he distrusted as much as television.
In Spain he was on the verge of presiding, in 2011, over the jury of the V International Film Festival of Ibiza , but had to decline the invitation when he had changes in the film he was shooting at the time.
His career, which for many focuses on his role in ‘Top Gun’ or starring in ‘Batman forever’ alongside Michael Keaton and George Clooney, brings together many other titles of and that are not in oblivion, such as ‘True Romance’ (1993) by Tony Scott; ‘Heat’ (1995) alongside De Niro and Al Pacino; ‘Pollock’ (2000), ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ (2005), ‘The steam experiment’ (2009), ‘Palo Alto’ (2013) or ‘Song to Song” (2017).
He even participated in the sequel ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ (released in 2022 but started shooting in 2018), but as he could no longer speak, in the film he sends written messages to the protagonist, played, of course, by Cruise, and only speaks briefly with technological support.
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