The Emmy-winning actor behind Dallas in Alien, Viper in Top Gun and the sheriff of Picket Fences died Wednesday of natural causes, per Variety.
Tom Skerritt, the Emmy-winning actor known for Alien, Top Gun, M*A*S*H and the CBS drama Picket Fences, has died at 93. Variety reported that he died on Wednesday of natural causes, citing his publicist, and The Hollywood Reporter said his family announced the news.
"We are heartbroken by his loss," the family said, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "While the world knew Tom through his remarkable acting career, we knew him for his humor, curiosity, wisdom, generosity and the love he brought into our lives."
From M*A*S*H to Alien
Skerritt's breakthrough came in Robert Altman's 1970 comedy M*A*S*H, in which he played the surgeon Duke Forrest, billed third after Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould. He worked with Altman again on Thieves Like Us in 1974 and turned up the same year in the Roger Corman crime comedy Big Bad Mama.
In Ridley Scott's Alien (1979) he played Dallas, captain of the doomed ship Nostromo, and was the film's first-billed actor. Variety reported that he had initially turned the part down while the project had a small budget and no director attached. The Hollywood Reporter added that he reconsidered after learning Scott was directing.
Top Gun and Picket Fences
Skerritt played Commander Mike "Viper" Metcalf, the flight instructor who trains Tom Cruise's Maverick, in the 1986 hit Top Gun. In Robert Redford's A River Runs Through It (1992) he played a Presbyterian minister and father of the characters played by Brad Pitt and Craig Sheffer, a role Variety described as a rare chance for serious dramatic work on the big screen.
On television, he starred as small-town sheriff Jimmy Brock on Picket Fences from 1992 to 1996. He won the Emmy for outstanding lead actor in a drama series in 1993 and was nominated again the following year. He also had a story arc on Cheers as Evan Drake, boss to Kirstie Alley's Rebecca Howe, later appeared on Brothers & Sisters, and played himself in a cameo in the 2012 comedy Ted.
Early life and later work
Thomas Roy Skerritt was born on Aug. 25, 1933, in Detroit, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He served in the U.S. Air Force before studying at Wayne State University and then UCLA. Variety listed his feature debut as the Korean War drama War Hunt (1962).
His later credits included Contact (1997), Tears of the Sun (2003) and, in 2021, a rare leading film role as a retired heart surgeon in East of the Mountains. Across six decades, The Hollywood Reporter noted, he was often cast as a figure of calm authority, from lawmen to ship captains.
Picture credit: Photo: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0 (Wikimedia). Design: Savvy VibeZ
