Tom Skerritt, ‘Alien’ and ‘Top Gun’ Star, Dies at 93
SEATTLE: Tom Skerritt, the American actor whose rugged presence anchored some of Hollywood’s most enduring films — from the sci-fi classic Alien to the blockbuster Top Gun — has died at 93. His family confirmed he passed away on Wednesday, October 21, of natural causes at his home.
“We are heartbroken by his loss,” his family said in a statement. “While the world knew Tom through his remarkable acting career, we knew him for his humor, curiosity, wisdom, generosity and the love he brought into our lives.”
A career across six decades
Born Thomas Roy Skerritt in Detroit on August 25, 1933, he served in the US Air Force before Hollywood came calling — and remained an advocate for veterans for the rest of his life. His breakthrough came as the roguish surgeon Duke Forrest in Robert Altman’s 1970 Korean War comedy M*A*S*H.
He went on to play Captain Dallas, the doomed skipper of the Nostromo, in Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi horror Alien, and Commander Mike “Viper” Metcalf — Tom Cruise’s no-nonsense flight instructor — in 1986’s Top Gun. On television, he starred as small-town Sheriff Jimmy Brock in CBS’s Picket Fences from 1992 to 1996, winning an Emmy for outstanding lead actor in a drama series in 1993.
His other film credits included The Turning Point (1977), Steel Magnolias (1989), Contact (1997) and Robert Redford’s A River Runs Through It (1992), in which he starred alongside Brad Pitt.
Skerritt was married three times and had five children. A career that stretched from the New Hollywood of the 1960s into the 2020s, his roles sit among the most recognizable in film history — from the Nostromo’s bridge to the Top Gun flight line.
