Val Kilmer had a Hollywood career that spanned more than four decades, but privately, the actor also had health struggles in the last decade of his life.
The Top Gun actor died of pneumonia on April 1 after previously recovering from throat cancer, which he was diagnosed with over a decade prior. The actor-turned-artist was surrounded by family and friends at his home in Los Angeles, his daughter Mercedes Kilmer told The New York Times.
Kilmer’s first movie role was in 1984’s Top Secret!, but he would soar to new heights of fame as one of the stars of Top Gun. The following decade he starred in hits like Tombstone, Heat, and Batman Forever.
In recent years, Kilmer was diagnosed with and recovered from throat cancer. He told his life story in the 2021 Amazon documentary Val and made his final screen appearance in 2022’s action blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick.
“I have no regrets,” Kilmer told the Associated Press in 2021. “I’ve witnessed and experienced miracles.”
Here’s a look back at Val Kilmer’s health struggles leading up to his death at age 65.
Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014
Rob Kim/Getty
Though Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014, he didn’t disclose it until a 2017 Reddit AMA. The actor was asked about comments his former The Ghost and the Darkness costar Michael Douglas made in 2016 regarding Kilmer’s cancer.
“He was probably trying to help me cause press probably asked where I was these days, and I did have a healing of cancer,” Kilmer wrote in the Reddit chat. “But my tongue is still swollen altho healing all the time. Because I don’t sound my normal self yet people think I may still be under the weather.”
A tracheostomy permanently damaged his speaking voice
Amanda Edwards/Getty
Kilmer eventually recovered following his 2014 diagnosis, thanks to a combination of radiation, chemotherapy and a tracheostomy that ultimately damaged his speaking voice.
“Now that it’s more difficult to speak, I want to tell my story more than ever,” the actor said in the 2021 documentary Val. “I obviously am sounding much worse than I feel.”
“I can’t speak without plugging this hole,” he explained in the film, pointing to the hole in his throat. “You have to make the choice to breathe or to eat. It’s an obstacle that is very present with whoever sees me.”
Kilmer noted how his cancer diagnosis put things in perspective for him. “I was too serious,” he confessed to The Hollywood Reporter in December 2017. “I’d get upset when things like Oscars and recognition failed to come my way.”
In a 2021 interview with Extra, his daughter Mercedes revealed her dad was “doing well” and “still recovering” from cancer. “The recovery process is just as grueling as the actual disease,” she said.
That same year, Kilmer graced the cover of PEOPLE and confirmed he was cancer-free.
His voice was “digitally altered” for clarity in 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick
Paramount Pictures
In 2022, Kilmer made his final screen appearance in Top Gun: Maverick, reprising his role of Tom “Iceman” Kazansky from the 1986 classic. Though there were rumors A.I. was used for Kilmer’s voice, in an interview with USA Today, director Joseph Kosinski confirmed A.I. technology was not used. Instead, the actor’s “voice was digitally altered and blended a little bit just for clarity.”
Kilmer died of pneumonia on April 1, 2025
Rochelle Brodin/Getty
Kilmer died of pneumonia at his home in Los Angeles on April 1. Though he recovered from throat cancer, the tracheostomy he underwent put him at a higher risk for respiratory disease.
According to the American Thoracic Society, “Both tracheostomy tubes and endotracheal tubes increase the chance of pneumonia.”
Following his death, many of Kilmer’s costars and Hollywood colleagues paid tribute to the late actor on social media. Michael Mann, who directed Kilmer in Heat, wrote on Instagram, “While working with Val on Heat I always marvelled at the range, the brilliant variability within the powerful current of Val’s possessing and expressing character.”
He continued, “After so many years of Val battling disease and maintaining his spirit, this is tremendously sad news.”
