Prolific American actor Val Kilmer, who was propelled to fame with “Top Gun” and went on to starring roles as Batman and Jim Morrison, has died at age 65, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

The cause of death was pneumonia, his daughter Mercedes Kilmer told the Times. He had battled throat cancer following a 2014 diagnosis, but later recovered, she said.

AFP has reached out to his representatives for comment.

Originally a stage actor, Kilmer burst onto the big screen full of charisma, cast as a rock star in Cold War spoof “Top Secret!” in 1984.

Two years later, he gained fame as the cocky, if mostly silent fighter pilot in training Tom “Iceman” Kazansky in box office smash hit “Top Gun,” playing a rival to Tom Cruise’s “Maverick.”

A versatile character actor whose career spanned decades, Kilmer toggled between blockbusters and smaller-budget independent films. He got a shot at leading man status in Oliver Stone’s “The Doors,” depicting Jim Morrison’s journey from a psychedelics-loving LA film student to 60s rock frontman.

After a cameo in Quentin Tarantino-written “True Romance,” Kilmer went on to star alongside Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in “Heat” and took a turn as the masked Gotham vigilante in “Batman Forever,” between the Bruce Wayne portrayals by Michael Keaton and George Clooney.

A 1996 Entertainment Weekly cover story dubbed Kilmer “The Man Hollywood Loves to Hate,” depicting him as a sometimes surly eccentric with exasperating work habits.

A New York Times interviewer in 2002 said Kilmer “hardly lives up to that reputation” and found the actor instead “friendly, buoyant and so open that he often volunteers personal details about his life and is quick to laugh at himself.”

“You have to learn to speak Val,” director D. J. Caruso told the newspaper.

– ‘ Magical life’ –

Born Val Edward Kilmer on New Year’s Eve 1959, he began acting in commercials as a child.

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