Tom Skerritt, the versatile actor who over his 60-plus year career played memorable roles in projects such as Top Gun, Picket Fences, M*A*S*H and Alien, has died. His family confirmed the news to Deadline. He was 93.
Skerritt was often memorable in supporting roles for his quiet, powerful presence and infectious smile. On Picket Fences, however, he played the lead, Sheriff Jimmy Brock, and won an Emmy for the performance.
After a four-year stint in the Air Force, Skerritt gravitated first toward directing and later acting. His earliest roles included arcs on TV westerns such as The Virginian, Death Valley Days, 12 O’Clock High and Gunsmoke.
Among his first big screen roles was Captain Augustus Bedford “Duke” Forrest in Robert Altman’s 1970 big screen comedy, M*A*S*H. The character, who was Southern and came off as slightly racist, bunked with Hawkeye, Frank Burns and Trapper John and goes on to have an affair with Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan. Neither Skerritt nor his character appeared in the long-running TV spinoff. “I thought they would just make it into another sitcom,” he later told the Associated Press.
Skerritt later played Dee Mobley in his friend Altman’s 1974 film, Thieves Like Us.
Throughout the 1970s, Skerritt turned up in a number of big screen comedies, dramas and even a landmark sci-fi film. Those films included Harold and Maude, The Turning Point, Up in Smoke and Ice Castles. The sci-fi outing happened to be a film directed by a relatively new British director named Ridley Scott.
When Skerritt first got the script for Alien, he didn’t think much of it or his role as Dallas, the captain of the doomed ship, Nostromo. By the end of the shoot, however, the actor said he offered to trade his salary for half a percentage point on the film. “Ron Shusett, the executive producer, just laughed,” he remembered. He would reprise the character for the 2014 video game Alien: Isolation.
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The actor also worked continuously on TV throughout his decades-long career. During that period he appeared on The F.B.I., Mannix, Lancer and Hawaii 5-0.
In 1986, Skerritt’s career hit another high point when he applied his Air Force experience as CDR Mike “Viper” Metcalf in Top Gun. A father figure to Tom Cruise’s Maverick, it’s Viper who tells Maverick the truth about his actual father’s heroic death. The conversation convinces a downcast Maverick to continue in the Top Gun program.
At about the same time, Skerritt had a recurring role on Season 6 of Cheers playing Evan Drake, a corporate boss, on whom Rebecca (Kirstie Alley) has a crush.
Skerritt got his breakout lead TV role on Picket Fences in 1992. The David E. Kelley-created show ran for four seasons on CBS. The drama is set in Rome, Wisconsin, a small town prone to odd occurrences which Skerritt’s Sheriff Jimmy Brock must investigate. While not a ratings blockbuster, Picket Fences garnered 14 Emmys, including Skerritt, who won Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1993.
After Picket Fences, Skerritt continued to work on top-tier shows, mostly in single-episode stints. A partial list of those titles includes Roseanne, Chicago Hope, Will & Grace, The West Wing, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, The Closer, The Good Wife and Madam Secretary. He had multi-episode appearances on Huff, Brothers & Sisters and Leverage.
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