Obituary

Val Kilmer should be more appreciated in death than he was in life

The late Val Kilmer was difficult. That word is a kiss of death in Hollywood, because as soon as it’s murmured that you are hard to work with, your career declines inexorably. Kilmer had directors lining up to say how impossible he was. Joel Schumacher, who made Batman Forever with him, barely stopped kvetching about the actor, calling him “overpaid, overprivileged and psychotic.” Shortly after the film’s release, Schumacher said “He was badly behaved, he was rude and inappropriate. I was forced to tell him that this would not be tolerated for one more second. Then we had two weeks where he did not speak to me, but it was bliss.

Kilmer

Ann Clwyd was a humanitarian unlike any today

From our UK edition

Ann Clwyd, who has died aged 86, never held ministerial office or high office of any kind. Unless, of course, you count a stint as chair of the parliamentary Labour party, though that is more of a penance than a power trip. She did a few tours on the opposition front bench under Neil Kinnock, John Smith and, briefly, Tony Blair, but she was too independent-minded and probably not metro enough for a New Labour red box. That she was rebelling against the government a few months into its first term only confirmed that. Voting against an early Harriet Harman benefit cut, designed to force single parents into the labour market, Clwyd pointed out there were ‘about 1,500 single parents and only 200 jobs available’ in her Cynon Valley constituency.