Tom Skerritt, ‘Picket Fences’ and ‘Alien’ Star, Dies at 93 — SkimNews
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- Tom Skerritt died Wednesday of natural causes at 93; Variety confirmed the news with his publicist.
- Tom Skerritt won the 1993 Emmy for playing sheriff Jimmy Brock in David E. Kelley’s CBS dramedy Picket Fences, received a 1994 nomination for the role, and earned SAG ensemble nominations in 1995 and 1996 plus an individual nomination in 1995.
- Tom Skerritt was first billed as Dallas, captain of the Nostromo, in Alien (1979), ahead of Sigourney Weaver, after initially turning down the low-budget project because no director was attached.
- Tom Skerritt played Duke Forrest, one of the “insubordinate but excellent” surgeons in Robert Altman’s MASH (1970), and Commander Mike “Viper” Metcalf, the chief instructor at Miramar Naval Air Station’s so-called Top Gun school, in Top Gun (1986).
- Tom Skerritt won the National Board of Review’s best supporting actor award for The Turning Point (1977); Variety later praised his father role in A River Runs Through It (1992) as revealing “the loving core inside the reedy exterior.”
- Tom Skerritt recurred as family patriarch William Walker on ABC’s Brothers & Sisters from 2006-09, then appeared in The Good Wife in 2014 and Madam Secretary in 2015.
- Tom Skerritt was born in Detroit, attended Wayne State University and UCLA, served in the U.S. Air Force, and is survived by wife Julie Tokashiki and children Andy, Matt, Colin and Erin.
Why it matters: Film and television audiences lose a performer who moved from an insubordinate surgeon in *MASH* (1970) to the first-billed Nostromo captain in *Alien* (1979), then won an Emmy for *Picket Fences* in 1993. His range connected genre films, character comedy and prestige drama across more than five decades.
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