Tom Skerritt Dies at 93 After Six-Decade Film and Television Career

The ensemble cast included Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould and Sally Kellerman. The film’s popularity coincided with unease in the United States over the Vietnam War, and it received five Academy Award nominations.

Captain Dallas in Alien

In Ridley Scott’s 1979 science-fiction horror film Alien, Skerritt played Dallas, the captain of an ill-fated spacecraft whose crew encounters a deadly parasitic extraterrestrial creature. During the film’s bloody “chestburster” scene, his character sits beside John Hurt’s character as a baby alien violently emerges from the latter’s torso.

The film, which also starred Sigourney Weaver and Ian Holm, received two Oscar nominations. Speaking to interviewer Peter Sobczynski in 2019, Skerritt recalled the rapport among the cast and praised Scott’s direction.

“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,” he said.

Skerritt also spoke about the film making Weaver’s Ripley its hero, a choice considered pioneering at the time. “When I read the script, one of the things that I liked most about it was that the woman becomes the hero. I loved that,” he said.

“The sight of women being in positions of strength and fortitude to make the right connections and decisions was what appealed to me. I experienced that as well in Steel Magnolias, with the women in that. I liked the idea of women being tough and strong and influential,” he added.

In Steel Magnolias in 1989, Skerritt played Drum Eatenton, the husband of Sally Field’s character, M’Lynn Eatenton.

From Top Gun to television

Tony Scott, the brother of the Alien director, cast Skerritt as naval aviation instructor Viper Metcalf in the 1986 blockbuster Top Gun, which helped propel Tom Cruise to greater Hollywood fame.

Skerritt also played the husband of Shirley MacLaine’s character in director Herbert Ross’s 1977 ballet drama The Turning Point. In 1992, he appeared alongside Brad Pitt in Robert Redford’s period drama A River Runs Through It.

His other film credits included Harold and Maude in 1971, Ice Castles in 1978, The Dead Zone in 1983, Poltergeist III in 1988, Contact in 1997, Tears of the Sun in 2003 and Ted in 2012.

On television, Skerritt starred in the CBS series Picket Fences from 1992 to 1996. He played a sheriff in a Wisconsin town and won the Emmy for outstanding lead actor in a drama series in 1993.

Born in Detroit on August 25, 1933, Skerritt served in the US Air Force before becoming an actor. He made his film debut in 1962 alongside a young Robert Redford in War Hunt. He was married three times and was the father of five children.