Val Kilmer as Madmartigan in Willow.

We lost an acting icon—and a personal favorite—last week. Val Kilmer passed away at age 65 after a courageous battle with insidious throat cancer. His last appearance on the big screen—an amazing effort—was a cameo in Top Gun: Maverick (2022), where he reprised his role as Tom “Iceman” Kazansky from the first movie. At that point he could barely speak.

My top two Val Kilmer films—not necessarily in order—are Thunderheart (1992) and The Ghost and the Darkness (1996). In Thunderheart he played FBI agent Ray Levoi, a man who, all his life, has denied his Native American heritage. When he is assigned to investigate a murder on a Sioux reservation in South Dakota, a new—and dangerous—world is opened up to him.

In The Ghost and the Darkness, based on a true story, Mr. Kilmer portrays Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson, who is tasked by a British financier to build a bridge over a river in Tsavo, Kenya, for a railway project. When the camp is bedeviled by two huge, man-eating lions, Patterson’s job becomes that much more challenging.

Among his nearly one hundred roles, the versatile actor also portrayed Doc Holliday in Tombstone (1993), singer Jim Morrison in The Doors (1991), Gay Perry in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), and Madmartigan, the swashbuckling swordsman in the wonderful fantasy adventure film, Willow (1988).

Rest in peace and without pain, Val Edward Kilmer. You will be missed.

For more about Thunderheart, check out my post, “Native American Film Gems: Thunderheart.” To learn more about the background for The Ghost and the Darkness, go to my post, “The Man-Eaters of Tsavo.”