In a rare interview Tuesday with Good Morning America, Val Kilmer opened up about his life following throat cancer. Kilmer is promoting his memoir, I’m Your Huckleberry.
The 60-year-old, who has a tracheotomy, said on GMA: “I feel a lot better than I sound, but I feel wonderful.”
Kilmer explained: [“I was diagnosed with throat cancer, which healed very quickly. This is a tracheotomy to help me breathe because the glands in my throat swelled up as well.”] SOUNDCUE (:17 OC: . . .swelled up as well.)
When asked if what he missed about his old voice: “That I had one! That I didn’t laugh like a pirate.”
He battled cancer for two years.
ON HOLLYWOOD ROMANCES
In his memoir, he wrote about his past relationships with Hollywood stars like Angelina Jolie, Cindy Crawford and Cher.
Discussing what drew the women him, he said: "I’m committed. You have to be committed with a woman that’s as dynamic and as committed to their work. As someone like Cindy Crawford, who was the number one model on the planet at the time."
In his memoir, he wrote of Jolie: “When people ask me what Angelina is like, I always say she’s like other women and other superstars, but just more. More gorgeous. More wise. More tragic. More magic. More grounded. Is it worth it? Worth knowing people who require weeks of effort to understand even a little? Yes.”
He was head over heels, he writes. “I couldn’t wait to kiss Angie, buy her [a] Gulfstream jet and have V+J painted in rainbow glory on the tail,” he writes in the book. “She had recently adopted her first child, Maddox, and the paparazzi were obsessed with this postmodern Madonna, the perfect picture of unapproachable stardom and impossibly chic maternal instinct.”
Kilmer is set to appear in the sequel to Top Gun with Tom Cruise. He was pumped, he said: "It was absolutely moving. I really was surprised. And Tom [Cruise] was wearing his jacket, the original jacket from the first movie, it was just very moving. And I don’t want to give away anything, but in between takes, Tom and I just laughed like we were in high school."
Val Kilmer on Throat Cancer :