Actor Val Kilmer, best-known for his roles in Top Gun, Batman Forever and The Doors, has died at the age of 65 in Los Angeles.

Kilmer, who found fame as the competitive naval aviator Tom “Iceman” Kazansky alongside Tom Cruise in the 1986 Top Gun, died of pneumonia, his daughter Mercedes Kilmer, told The New York Times on Wednesday.

The actor was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2015, and a moving 2021 documentary about his life, Val, showed him needing a breathing tube.

Kilmer was one of Hollywood’s most prominent leading men in the 1990s before numerous spats with directors and co-stars and a series of flops dented his career.

In 2022, Kilmer reprised his role as Iceman in the Top Gun: Maverick.

In the sequel, the Iceman character had throat cancer, in a reflection of Kilmer’s own diagnosis, and communicated with Cruise’s Maverick via typed words on a screen.

As well as his charismatic leading man roles, Kilmer showed his versatility as Robert De Niro’s henchman in Michael Mann’s Heat (1995) and as Marlon Brando’s insane assistant in John Frankenheimer’s The Island of Dr Moreau (1996).

In the last film of his career, he played homosexual detective Gay Perry in Shane Black’s 2005 tribute to film noir, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, alongside Robert Downey jr.

Kilmer was married to British actress Joanne Whalley from 1988 until their divorce in 1996, after they met on the set of fantasy movie Willow.

In Oliver Stone‘s 1991 biopic The Doors (1991), Kilmer sported long, brown hair and skintight black leathers as the band’s lead singer Jim Morrison. He reportedly took months to prepare for the role, and recorded his voice against the backing of original Doors master tapes for the film.

“He looks so uncannily like Jim Morrison that we feel this is not a case of casting, but of possession. The performance is the best thing in the movie — and since nearly every scene centres on Morrison, that is not small praise. Val Kilmer has always had a remarkable talent, which until now has been largely overlooked,” Roger Ebert wrote in his review of the film.

For years Kilmer had a reputation as temperamental, intense, perfectionistic and sometimes egotistical.

“When certain people criticise me for being demanding, I think that’s a cover for something they didn’t do well. I think they’re trying to protect themselves,” Kilmer told the Orange County Register newspaper in 2003.

“I believe I’m challenging, not demanding, and I make no apologies for that.”