Val Kilmer died from pneumonia in April 2025. He was 65.<\/b>
\nVal Kilmer\u2019s daughter Mercedes is honoring her late father.
On what would have been the \u201cTop Gun\u201d star\u2019s 66th birthday, his daughter, 34, took to Instagram to pen a touching tribute.
\u201cMy dad would have been 66 today,\u201d Mercedes wrote alongside a carousel of 20 pictures, \u201cborn on the last day of the fifties \u2764\ufe0f so grateful to all my friends for getting me through 2025.\u201d
The images included shots of Kilmer, who died of pneumonia in April 2025, as a child, in various movies throughout his career, on his wedding day with ex-wife Joanne Whalley, 64, and with Mercedes and son Jack, 30.
Kilmer was married to Whalley, whom he shared Mercedes and Jack with, from 1988 to 1996.
Despite the short-lived marriage, the \u201cBatman\u201d actor remained a constant in his kids\u2019 lives.
\u201cI can\u2019t be a responsible parent and only be there three or four months a year,\u201d Kilmer told Vanity Fair in 2012.
In 2020, Mercedes starred in the film \u201cPaydirt\u201d alongside her dad.
\u201cThe producer called me up and asked me if I would play this role and I said, \u2018I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve found anybody yet to play my daughter, but I might have someone for you. Her name is Mercedes Kilmer and perhaps you\u2019d be interested in meeting with her,\u2019\u201d Kilmer told People at the time. \u201cMercedes and the producer met and they all had a ball.\u201d
In the film, the actor played a sheriff who had a speech disability that mirrored his real life.
Kilmer went through a two-year throat cancer battle after being diagnosed in 2015. He underwent two tracheotomies, which permanently altered the sound of his voice, but he later recovered.
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty historic to have a lead with a speech disability,\u201d Mercedes acknowledged to People. \u201cI hope that it heralds more doors opening like that in the future.\u201d
The actress also opened up about her dad\u2019s health battle.
\u201cIt\u2019s obvious my dad\u2019s speech is compromised and so this whole experience revealed the personal effort I had put into working with actors with a disability, which I hadn\u2019t done before,\u201d Mercedes reflected. \u201cIt revealed how much I had to gain from working with people who have different abilities. My dad\u2019s able to very artfully circumvent the limitations of his speech, so I learned so much watching him, how he communicated physically. It taught me so much about acting that expanded what I thought acting was, which was central to speech.\u201d
Kilmer, meanwhile, felt he learned \u201ceverything \u2014 life itself\u201d from Mercedes.
And the bumps in the road brought the pair closer together.
\u201cThe health challenges have been just that, challenging, but so many good things have come out of it,\u201d Mercedes detailed. \u201cWe all spend so much time together. Even just getting to meet all my dad\u2019s friends from before I was born \u2014 there are so many beautiful things that happen when you need help from people.\u201d
\u201cMy dad is such a smart and creative person that I love hanging out with, even if he wasn\u2019t my dad, too,\u201d she gushed.
Kilmer himself went on to praise both his kids as \u201creally brilliant.\u201d
\u201cI am just madly, wildly entertained by them,\u201d continued Kilmer. \u201cMy only gripe is that I never see them enough, so I never get enough of the wild entertainment that everyone else gets, but they\u2019re really, really, entertaining.\u201d
Kilmer and his son Jack, who narrated his dad\u2019s 2021 documentary \u201cVal,\u201d also shared a close bond.
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say things surprised me about my dad. He\u2019s such an open person that I know very well,\u201d Mercedes, who served as an associate producer on the Prime Video doc, told Entertainment Tonight at the time. \u201cBut it did really surprise me to see it with an audience. I\u2019m so used to people not understanding my dad. I\u2019m so used to his public image being different than the playful, funny person that we know.\u201d
Kilmer was last photographed five years before his death while with Mercedes.
The two were pictured attending the annual Thespians Go Hollywood Gala at Avalon Hollywood on Nov. 18, 2019.<\/p>\n