Val Kilmer, who died at 65 on Tuesday, donned Batman’s cape, starred as a gunslinger, flew supersonic fighter jets in “Top Gun” and held the screen as a bumbling singer in a slapstick comedy about the Cold War.
Kilmer was a leading man in Hollywood during the 1980s and ’90s, then exited stage left for more than a decade. His career was disrupted by throat cancer and a tracheotomy, but he had already left his mark with a series of notable performances.
“Once you’re a star, you’re always a star,” he said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in 2012.
Here are three of his most memorable roles:
Kilmer replaced Michael Keaton as Batman, stepping into the film franchise as it transitioned from the gloomy atmosphere of Tim Burton to the campier direction of Joel Schumacher. Kilmer’s Caped Crusader in “Batman Forever” (1995) was stoic enough. But the tone of the film was set early, when Batman’s butler, Alfred, asked him if he needed a sandwich as he got into the Batmobile. “I’ll get drive-through,” Kilmer deadpanned.
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Perhaps Kilmer’s best-known role was Iceman, the cocky pilot who rivals Tom Cruise’s character in “Top Gun” (1986), the adrenaline-pumping film about fighter pilots in training. With aviators on, hair thickly gelled and a crisp white uniform, Iceman is a smooth-talking pilot with skills to match. “It’s the way he flies,” the character Goose says in one scene. “Ice-cold. No mistakes.” Kilmer reprised the role in the 2022 sequel.
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Kilmer plays Robert De Niro’s right-hand man as the two thieves try to pull off heist after heist in a cat-and-mouse game with a police officer played by Al Pacino. “Heat” (1995) has two memorable scenes, an epic shootout and a conversation between Pacino and De Niro in a coffee shop. But as the third fiddle, Kilmer offers up a softer aspect of the film in an oft-quoted conversation with De Niro about his relationship. “Allow nothing to be in your life that you cannot walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you spot the heat around the corner,” De Niro advises. “For me, the sun rises and sets with her, man,” Kilmer responds.
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