Tom Skerritt, the Emmy-winning actor whose decades-long career spanned Cmdr. Mike “Viper” Metcalf in “Top Gun,” Capt. Dallas in “Alien” and Sheriff Jimmy Brock on “Picket Fences,” died Wednesday at age 93. His family said the cause was natural causes.
According to ABC News, Skerritt was born Aug. 25, 1933, in Detroit, and served four years in the U.S. Air Force before turning to acting. He made his film debut in the 1962 war drama “War Hunt” and went on to build one of the more durable character-actor careers in Hollywood, a trajectory that, per Playbill, carried him from “M*A*S*H” through “The Turning Point,” “Alien,” “A River Runs Through It,” “Steel Magnolias,” “Top Gun” and “Contact.”
From Alien's Captain to Top Gun's Viper
Skerritt's breakout genre turn came in 1979, when he played Capt. Arthur Dallas, the ill-fated commander of the Nostromo in “Alien,” as noted by ABC7 Los Angeles. Seven years later, he reached a new generation of moviegoers playing Cmdr. Mike “Viper” Metcalf opposite Tom Cruise in the 1986 blockbuster “Top Gun,” the station's report notes.
His small-screen legacy proved just as significant. Skerritt starred as Sheriff Jimmy Brock in the CBS drama “Picket Fences” from 1992 to 1996, a role that earned him the 1993 Primetime Emmy Award for outstanding lead actor in a drama series, the same account states.
A Career Built on Range
Years earlier, Skerritt played Shirley MacLaine's husband in 1977's “The Turning Point,” winning the National Board of Review's best supporting actor award for the performance, according to The New York Times. In 1992's “A River Runs Through It,” he played a stern Presbyterian minister who was the father of Brad Pitt's character, the Times reported.
Skerritt also appeared as Sally Field's husband in “Steel Magnolias” and took on an opportunist role in “Contact,” rounding out a filmography that reflected his comfort moving between leading and supporting parts. In a 1997 interview with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, he said he valued being described as a character actor locked in a leading man's body. He later made his Broadway debut in 2013 in an adaptation of John Grisham's “A Time to Kill,” a performance the Associated Press described as a charming, disgraced and drunken lawyer. In 2004, he had narrated “Our Town” at Seattle's Intiman Theatre.
Building a Second Legacy in Seattle
Away from the screen, Skerritt helped establish TheFilmSchool in Seattle, an organization built to support emerging filmmakers and storytellers, according to TheWrap. He also co-founded the Red Badge Project, which uses writing and storytelling to help veterans work through post-traumatic stress, anxiety and depression, TheWrap reported.
The program grew well beyond its Seattle roots. As CBS News reported, the Red Badge Project expanded to five cities across Washington state, with more than 1,000 veterans taking part. Skerritt, himself an Air Force veteran, described the impact of that work in blunt terms when he spoke with the Seattle Times: “Storytelling is the best thing ever, ever,” he said. “It's hugely therapeutic.”
Survived by Family Who Knew Him Beyond the Screen
Skerritt is survived by his wife, Julie Tokashiki, five children, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, per ABC News. His family said that while the world knew him through his acting career, those closest to him knew his humor, curiosity, wisdom, generosity and love, and that he believed deeply in storytelling. Information about a memorial will be shared at a later date, the family said.
