For anyone who grew up watching movies in the 1980s, Val Kilmer, who died Tuesday, was something of an anomaly among the young Hollywood actors whose careers blew up during that decade.

Compared to Tom Cruise, Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, Emilio Estevez, Robert Downey Jr., John Cusack or Tom Hanks, to name a handful of stars who emerged back then, Kilmer was not exactly a strapping action hero nor a smooth heartbreak kid. Nor did he come across as a brooding Method-style thespian, or as someone who could provide instant comic relief onscreen.

In some ways, Kilmer was all of these things at once, and therefore unclassifiable. He was mostly a great character actor with the looks of a leading man, capable of melting into roles that almost invariably had an edge to them.

His most memorable films, including Top Gun, The Doors, Tombstone and Heat, were popular hits in...