Among Hollywood’s most notorious womanisers, Val Kilmer was also a hopeless romantic. 

Val, who died on April 1 from pneumonia at the age of 65, famously had a vision that he would marry British actress Joanne Whalley – days before he laid eyes on her for the first time. 

In 1985, the Top Gun actor followed Joanne, best known for Edge of Darkness, Scarlett, and Scandal, from the West End to an after-party after he became enamoured by her beauty and talent when he watched her in a play.

While the Hollywood playboy was hardly shy around women, there was something about Joanne that rendered him speechless; that night, he left the pub without saying goodbye to the woman who would become his future wife. 

Two years later in 1987, Val and Joanne came face-to-face onscreen for the first time when they were introduced as each other’s love interests in the fantasy film Willow. 

The whirlwind romance spawned an eight-year marriage that produced two children but ultimately ended in heartbreak after Joanne brutally ended their relationship – as Val famously quipped their divorce was ‘the second most expensive’ in New Mexico. 

Despite going their separate ways, Val and Joanne continued to co-parent their two children, son Jack, 29, and daughter Mercedes, 33, in the years leading up to his death. 

After Mercedes confirmed her father had passed away, she was seen sharing a tender hug with her Joanne outside their home in West Hollywood – one day after Val’s shock death. 

Val, who died on April 1 from pneumonia , famously had a vision that he would marry British actress Joanne Whalley – days before he ever saw her

Legend has it that Val followed Joanne, best known for Edge of Darkness, Scarlett, and Scandal, from the West End to an after-party after he became enamoured by her beauty and talent. They are seen here in a still from ‘Kill Me Again’ 

While the Hollywood playboy was the furthest thing from shy around women, there was something about Joanne that rendered him speechless; that night, he left the pub without saying goodbye to the woman who would become his future wife

The actor – who was ‘very frail’ near the end of his life, a decade after battling throat cancer – was married to British actress Joanne from 1988 until 1996. 

Despite his many high-profile romances, with Angelina Jolie, Cindy Crawford, and Cher, Val only tied the knot once in his life after he fell head over heels in love with her. 

A well-known face on British television in the Eighties, Joanne travelled to the US in 1987 to shoot her first lead role in an American film after she was cast in George Lucas and Ron Howard’s critically-acclaimed fantasy movie Willow. 

Willow also starred Warwick Davis, Billy Barty, and Jean Marsh, with Davis portraying a magician who joins forces with a mercenary warrior (Val) to save a young princess from the murderous designs of an evil queen (Marsh). 

Joanne played the role of Sorsha, the Queen’s daughter, who falls in love with Val’s character Madmartigan after he is accidentally slipped a love potion.

Brought together by the Oscar-nominated film, Val and Joanne began dating shortly after they met and said ‘I do’ during a private ceremony in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1988 – the same year Willow was released. 

For Val, his marriage to Joanne was a literal dream come true. 

In 2020, The Hollywood actor told The New York Times how he dreamed that he met the woman he was destined to be with, before Val set eyes on Joanne, and woke up and immediately wrote a poem called, ‘We’ve Just Met but Marry Me Please’. 

Val and Joanne welcomed two children, daughter Mercedes (left) and son Jack (right) during their eight-year marriage 

Brought together by the Oscar-nominated film, Val and Joanne began dating shortly after they met and said ‘I do’ during a private ceremony in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1988 – the same year Willow was released

For Val, his marriage to Joanne was a literal dream come true – after he revealed to The New York Times he’d had a premonition they were destined to come together even before he’d ever seen Joanne 

Right after his night-time premonition, Val travelled to London and, during that time, happened to watch a play that Joanne was starring in. 

He was so mesmerised by her that Val followed her to the after-party ‘just so he could look at her’, the newspaper reported. 

While Val was a certified Hollywood hunk, who was surrounded by glamorous women, there was something about Joanne that caught him off-guard. 

The typically suave and self-assured leading man left the London pub without speaking to Joanne – only for fate to bring them back together on the sets of Willow two years later.  

Despite what many thought was the beginning of a fairytale romance, Val and Joanne’s marriage, ultimately, crumbled under the weight of infidelity allegations and the pressures of Tinseltown. 

In his memoir, Val also reflected on how their different upbringings made him and Joanne an unlikely pair. 

While the effusive American actor wore his heart on his sleeve, Joanne’s stoic English manner meant the couple – who would ultimately go their separate ways – didn’t always see eye-to-eye. 

Writing in his memoir, he recalled how Joanne once told Val ‘you get crushes on everything’. 

While the effusive American actor wore his heart on his sleeve, Joanne’s stoic English manner meant the couple – who would ultimately go their separate ways – didn’t always see eye-to-eye

According to The Times, Joanne found it difficult to cope with the ‘constant rumours about his on-set romances’ as he embarked on what would be the most successful phase of his acting career

After eight years of marriage, and against the backdrop of incessant gossip about his on-set flings, Joanne filed for divorce from Val citing ‘irreconcilable differences’ – two months after Jack’s birth. They are scene here in a still from 1988 film Willow 

‘You have a crush on your organic garden,’ his wife quipped. 

After honeymooning with Val on Marlon Brando’s island in Tahiti, Joanne relocated to Los Angeles and officially changed her name to Joanne Whalley-Kilmer as she and Val began a new chapter of their lives. 

In 1991, they welcomed their firstborn child, daughter Mercedes, and it appeared Val and Joanne had found their ‘happily ever after’. 

Their story, however, ended in heartbreak after eight years of marriage – as Joanne struggled to come to terms with Val’s Hollywood heartthrob status. 

According to The Times, Joanne found it difficult to cope with the ‘constant rumours about his on-set romances’ as he embarked on what would be the most successful phase of his acting career.

Joanne, meanwhile, stepped back from the spotlight to focus on raising her young children; she gave birth to her and Val’s son Jack in 1995. 

At the time, it was reported that the English actress – who starred in soaps like Emmerdale and Coronation Street before crossing over to Hollywood – had walked in on a ‘half-naked’ Val kissing a crew member in his Batman Forever trailer. 

Val’s only outing as the dark knight was widely panned – but that wasn’t the only setback he suffered in 1993. 

Val and Cher dated for two years from 1982 to 1984, when Cher was 36 and Val was 23

After eight years of marriage, and against the backdrop of incessant gossip about his on-set flings, Joanne filed for divorce from Val citing ‘irreconcilable differences’ – two months after Jack’s birth. 

The actor, however, had no idea his wife had left him – until he heard the news while watching CNN in a hotel room, according to the Tampa Bay Times. 

‘It was no fun,’ he said, during a 1999 interview with the publication.   

Joanne and Val’s divorce was finalised in 1996 after she won custody of Mercedes and Jack, and took them to Los Angeles to live with her. 

Being separated from his children left Val heartbroken, with the A-lister admitting he missed them ‘every single way that’s possible’ and in ‘ways I didn’t know were possible’. 

Shortly after his divorce from Joanne, Val began dating Cindy Crawford – with the actor crediting the supermodel for supporting him through what was one of the most trying phases of his life. 

‘I thought I could have died from her love,’ he told The Guardian in 2005, ‘not because it was difficult but because its delight was simply too much to bear.’ 

After Cindy, Val would go on to date producer Jaycee Gossett, Daryl Hannah – who he never stopped loving – and Angelina Jolie, but he never remarried. 

Among his pool of high profile beaus was the American actress, Ellen Barkin (pictured in 1994)

Val was looking for a shoulder to cry on following his divorce from Joanne Whalley – and found solace in Cindy Crawford (pictured 1996)

Angelina Jolie pictured as Queen Olympias, with Val Kilmer as Philip, and Colin Farrell as Alexander the Great

His relationship with the Mr and Mrs Smith actress is believed to be Val’s final romance, with the actor sharing he had been single for 20 years in his memoir I’m Your Huckleberry.

‘I haven’t had a girlfriend in 20 years. The truth is I am lonely part of every day,’ his devastating confession read.