New York Times, “Tom Skerritt Has Died. He Was Viper in ‘Top Gun’ and the Captain in ‘Alien.’“
Tom Skerritt, the affable, generally soft-spoken, simultaneously folksy and commanding Emmy Award-winning actor whose best-known roles were in films as different as “MAS*H,” “Alien” and “Steel Magnolias,” died on Wednesday. He was 93.
The family announced the death in a statement but provided no further details.
Mr. Skerritt was a familiar and complex screen presence for almost six decades. In Robert Altman’s “MAS*H” (1970), he was Duke Forrest, a boyish, martini-drinking Army surgeon, a laid-back guy, perhaps not as flamboyantly iconoclastic as some of his colleagues. He shared their worldview, however. Watching another character, Maj. Frank Burns, being taken away in a straitjacket, he offered his superior officer a thought: “If I nail Hot Lips and punch Hawkeye, can I go home?”
After that, he tended to play strong authority figures — lawmen, military types, confident fathers — who seemed innately, unrelentingly American. In “Alien” (1979), he was the common-sense spaceship captain, a reluctant hero who did the right thing when a monster was on the loose. In “Top Gun” (1986), he was Viper, the hard-nosed flight instructor who told Tom Cruise’s character, “That’s pretty arrogant,” then added, “I like that in a pilot.” But Viper spoke compassionately to the young man about his dead father.
In “The Turning Point” (1977), he was Shirley MacLaine’s solid, understanding husband — a New York dancer turned Oklahoma City husband, father and ballet teacher. He won the National Board of Review’s best supporting actor award for the role. And in “A River Runs Through It” (1992), he was a stern Presbyterian minister, the father of Brad Pitt’s character, who loved fly-fishing in rural early-20th-century Montana.
Playing a small-town Wisconsin sheriff on the prime-time CBS series “Picket Fences” (1992-96) made Mr. Skerritt a household name and brought him an Emmy for best lead actor in a drama series. Some wondered, however, if drama was the right category. In one unlikely episode of the show, created by David E. Kelley, the pope came to town and witnessed a murder. In others, an obese woman killed her husband by sitting on him, the mayor shot a carjacker, and a cow somehow gave birth to a human baby.
“It was a wonderful satire, though I don’t know if it was always seen as that,” Mr. Skerritt told Film Comment in 2016.
Thomas Roy Skerritt was born on Aug. 25, 1933, in Detroit, the youngest of three sons of Roy Skerritt, who was described as a salesman in the 1940 census, and Helen (Maybee) Skerritt.
Right after high school, Tom enlisted in the Air Force, where he spent four years. Back in Detroit, with the help of the G.I. Bill, he entered Wayne State University as an English major and took art classes at night. Growing interested in film school and in directing, he transferred to U.C.L.A., where he did theater on and off campus. In his last semester, he was cast in the Korean War combat movie “War Hunt” (1962). The ensemble cast also included Robert Redford and Sydney Pollack, unknowns who became stars, close friends and mentors.
During the 1960s, Mr. Skerritt appeared mostly on television series — among them “Combat!” (Mr. Altman directed 10 episodes of the show), “Death Valley Days,” “12 O’Clock High” and “The Virginian.”
Television was a significant part of his career in later years, too. Playing some 40 roles in series, mini-series and TV movies in the 2000s, he was seen as recurring characters on “Cheers” (Kirstie Alley’s debonair, desirable, rich boss) and “Brothers & Sisters” (the dead husband who returned in flashbacks).
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In addition to his most famous portrayals, he appeared in another three dozen or so films, including “Steel Magnolias” (1989), as Julia Roberts’s irreverent Louisiana father; Robert Altman’s “Thieves Like Us” (1974), as Shelley Duvall’s father, a gas-station owner; “The Dead Zone” (1983), as a small-town New England sheriff; and the science fiction drama “Contact” (1997), as a scheming presidential adviser.
The Hollywood Reporter, “Tom Skerritt, Star of ‘Picket Fences’ and ‘Alien,’ Dies at 93“
Tom Skerritt, the rough-hewn actor who sparkled amid ensembles in M*A*S*H, Alien and Top Gun before starring as small-town sheriff Jimmy Brock on the quirky 1990s series Picket Fences, has died. He was 93.
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The collaborative Skerritt also portrayed Shirley MacLaine’s husband in the 11-time Oscar nominee The Turning Point (1977), was Tom Cruise’s Air Force instructor Mike “Viper” Metcalf in Top Gun (1986) and was memorable as a minister and the patriarch of the MacLean family in Robert Redford‘s rhythmic A River Runs Through It (1992).
Known for his outdoorsy features and bristly mustache, the handsome actor exuded masculinity during his six-decade career and was often cast in positions of authority — as when he starred as the iconic lawman Will Kane in a 2000 remake of High Noon for TBS.
Skerritt’s breakthrough came in the 1970 feature M*A*S*H.
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The Detroit native credited Altman for giving him the freedom to create the character. “I just loved the guy from the first. He made me realize early on that you could do no wrong, as long as you tried,” Skerritt said in Mitchell Zuckoff’s 2009 book Robert Altman: The Oral Biography. “The worst you could do was make an ass out of yourself. And that’s the first thing you have to be willing to do as an actor, be willing to make an ass out of yourself. Bob gave me that.”
Rolling Stone, “Tom Skerritt, ‘Alien’ and ‘Picket Fences’ Actor, Dead at 93“
Tom Skerritt, the Emmy-winning actor who starred in Alien and Picket Fences, has died at the age of 93.
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Over a career that spanned seven decades, Skerritt also had supporting roles in films like M*A*S*H, Top Gun (as the commanding officer of Tom Cruise’s Maverick), the erotic thriller Poison Ivy, the sci-fi drama Contact, and the horror film Poltergeist III.
The Detroit-born Skerritt spent the entire 1960s on television, appearing on shows like Gunsmoke, Combat, and The Virginian, but landed his breakout role as Captain Duke Forrest in director Robert Altman’s hit 1970 war comedy, M*A*S*H.
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On the small screen, Skerritt had a six-episode arc as Evan Drake on Cheers before starring as Sheriff Jimmy Brock for four seasons of the offbeat drama Picket Fences, a role that ultimately won Skerritt an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1993.
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The actor would later appear on Madam Secretary, The Good Wife, Brothers & Sisters, and White Collar. Skerritt, who was 37 years old when he broke through with M*A*S*H, continued to act into his nineties; his final film role was in the 2025 Western Broke.
Skerritt had already established himself as a television actor before I was born and was still working at 92. Even after breaking out in the M*A*S*H movie, he continued as a character actor on television, seemingly appearing on just about every show I remember watching with my parents in the 1970s.
I’ll always remember him most fondly for his role as “Viper” in the original Top Gun movie.
