Tom Skerritt, Emmy-winning star of ‘Picket Fences’, ‘Alien’ and ‘Top Gun’, psses away at 93 |
Tom Skerritt, the Emmy-winning actor who embodied a solid, wry authority figure, whether as a flight instructor in “Top Gun”, a tough-but-fair sheriff on TV’s “Picket Fences” or the doomed captain of “Alien”, has sadly passed away. He was 93.
Tom Skerritt’s family issues statement
Skerritt died on Wednesday of natural causes, his family said in a statement. “While the world knew Tom through his remarkable acting career, we knew him for his humour, curiosity, wisdom, generosity and the love he brought into our lives. He cared deeply about imagination, creativity, storytelling, service, veterans, the natural world and helping others find and share their own voices,” the statement said.
Tom Skerritt’s career milestones
Skerritt was twice nominated for an Emmy — both for “Picket Fences”, winning outstanding lead actor in a drama series in 1993. Other career highlights include playing the patient husband of Shirley MacLaine in “Turning Point”, Sally Field’s husband in “Steel Magnolias” and a scheming opportunist who stands in the way of Jodie Foster’s attempt to communicate with extraterrestrial life in “Contact”.“A writer once described me as a character actor locked in a leading man’s body, and I have always loved that. It is a nice compliment. I have been able to walk the line between television and features,” he told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 1997.
Tom Skerritt’s breakthrough role
Skerritt’s breakthrough role was a roguish US Army surgeon in director Robert Altman’s 1970 Korean War black comedy “M*A*S*H,” a film whose ensemble cast also included Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould and Sally Kellerman. Skerritt played Southerner Duke Forrest as the doctors at the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital stitched up wounded troops.The film, whose popularity coincided with American unease over the Vietnam War, was nominated for five Academy Awards.In director Ridley Scott’s claustrophobic 1979 sci-fi horror “Alien”, Skerritt played Dallas, the captain of an ill-fated spacecraft whose crew encounters a deadly parasitic extraterrestrial creature with a surrealist look and a bad attitude. In the film’s famous and bloody “chestburster” scene, Skerritt’s character is seated next to cast mate John Hurt when a baby alien violently exits the torso of Hurt’s character.
Tom Skerritt’s role in ‘Alien
“Alien,” an influential masterpiece whose ensemble cast also included Sigourney Weaver and Ian Holm, earned two Oscar nominations.“It is spontaneity and impulse that make the difference, and that is what I felt we had with ‘Alien.’ Every one of us had that immediate rapport with each other – the respect that I had for the other actors and the respect that they had for me,” Skerritt told interviewer Peter Sobczynski in 2019, while also lauding Scott’s directorial brilliance.“Alien” was one of several films in which Skerritt appeared that featured strong female characters, in this case Weaver’s courageous character Ripley. That was considered pioneering at the time.Onstage, he was the narrator in “Our Town” at Seattle’s Intiman Theatre in 2004 and made his Broadway debut in 2013 in an adaptation of John Grisham’s “A Time to Kill”.
Tom Skerritt’s personal life
Born on August 25, 1933, in Detroit, Skerritt served in the US Air Force before becoming an actor, making his film debut in 1962 alongside a young Redford in “War Hunt.” He was a father of five children and was married three times.
