Val Kilmer, Movie Star Who Performed Batman and Jim Morrison, Dies at 65

Val Kilmer, a homegrown Hollywood actor who tasted leading-man stardom as Jim Morrison and Batman, however whose protean items and elusive persona additionally made him a high-profile supporting participant, died on Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 65.

The trigger was pneumonia, stated his daughter, Mercedes Kilmer. Mr. Kilmer was identified with throat most cancers in 2014 and later recovered, she stated.

Tall and good-looking in a rock-star type of means, Mr. Kilmer was the truth is solid as a rocker a handful of instances early in his profession, when he appeared destined for blockbuster success. He made his characteristic debut in a slapstick Chilly Struggle spy-movie spoof, “High Secret!” (1984), during which he starred as a crowd-pleasing, hip-shaking American singer in Berlin unwittingly concerned in an East German plot to reunify the nation.

He gave a vividly stylized efficiency as Morrison, the logo of psychedelic sensuality, in Oliver Stone’s “The Doorways” (1991), and he performed the cameo function of Mentor — an advice-giving Elvis as imagined by the movie’s antiheroic protagonist, performed by Christian Slater — in “True Romance” (1993), a violent drug-chase caper written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott.

Mr. Kilmer had prime billing (forward of Sam Shepard) in “Thunderheart” (1992), enjoying an unseasoned F.B.I. agent investigating a homicide on a South Dakota Indian reservation, and in “The Saint” (1997), a thriller a few debonair, resourceful thief enjoying cat-and-mouse with the Russian mob. Most famously, maybe, between Michael Keaton and George Clooney he inhabited the title function (and the batsuit) in “Batman Endlessly” (1995), doing battle in Gotham Metropolis with Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones) and the Riddler (Jim Carrey), although neither Mr. Kilmer nor the movie have been considered as stellar representatives of the Batman franchise.

“Severe audiences might be much less than ever in what’s beneath Batman’s cape or cowl,” Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Instances. “There’s not a lot to ponder right here past the spectacle of gimmicky props and the kitsch of fine actors (all of whom have currently performed higher work elsewhere) dressed for a red-hot Halloween.”