Val Kilmer has died aged 65, leaving behind a glorious acting career and a loving family.
The Los Angeles-born actor died of pneumonia on Monday, having previously been diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014.
Kilmer was a prominent leading man in 1990s action films and is best known for playing the caped crusader in Batman Forever.
Read also: Val Kilmer dead at 65: Tributes pour in for Hollywood star of Top Gun and Batman Forever as daughter reveals cause of death
He is also fondly remembered for his renowned portrayal of Jim Morrison in The Doors and his standout roles in Heat, Top Gun, and Tombstone. He continued working into the 2000s, though numerous clashes with directors and co-stars impacted his career.
Heat director Michael Mann said: “While working with Val, I always marvelled at the range, the brilliant variability within the powerful current of Val’s possessing and expressing character. After so many years of Val battling disease and maintaining his spirit, this is tremendously sad news.”
Here are the family members that Kilmer has left behind.
Who are Val Kilmer's children and was he married?
Kilmer met his wife, the actress Joanne Whalley, while working with her in Ron Howard and George Lucas’s 1988 fantasy epic Willow.
The pair married that same year but divorced in 1996. Though he never remarried, he was romantically linked to several high-profile women, including Cher, Angelina Jolie, Cindy Crawford, and Daryl Hannah, according to People.
“Lord knows I’ve suffered heartache. But Daryl was by far the most painful of all,” he said about the split in 2001. Hannah later married Neil Young.
So sad😢Kilmer was incredible.
— Pat Ram (@Celtics_PRam) April 2, 2025
The way Joanne Whalley looked at him in Willow is how every man should be looked at by the woman they love. Oh my goodness. pic.twitter.com/5JgZ9N6CEG
4. Val Kilmer, his daughter Mercedes, and his son Jack pic.twitter.com/DJIzvzd1tD
— 5-Minute Crafts (@5m_crafts) December 14, 2024
Of Cher, whom he dated in the 1980s, he said: “Once Cher works her way inside your head and heart, she never leaves. For her true friends, her steadfast love and loyalty never die.”
Kilmer had two children with Whalley: Mercedes, born in 1991, and Jack, born in 1995.
Musician and actress confirmed her father’s passing to the New York Times on Tuesday.
Jack Kilmer followed in his father’s acting footsteps, starring in The Nice Guys and Palo Alto. He also directed a documentary about his father: Val.
Kilmer was said to have had a close relationship with them and said in 2020: "My only gripe is that I never see them enough, so I never get enough of the wild entertainment that everyone else gets, but they're really, really, entertaining."
