{"id":891208,"date":"2026-10-22T21:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T21:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/891208\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T21:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T21:18:09","slug":"tom-skerritt-dead-picket-fences-and-alien-star-was-93","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/891208\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Skerritt Dead: Picket Fences and Alien Star Was 93"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom Skerritt<\/a>, who starred in the TV series \u201cPicket Fences\u201d and appeared in movies ranging from \u201cMASH\u201d to \u201cAlien<\/a>,\u201d \u201cTop Gun,\u201d \u201cA River Runs Through It\u201d and \u201cTed,\u201d died on Wednesday of natural causes, Variety has confirmed with his publicist.\u00a0He was 93.<\/p>\n

The lean, rugged, mustachioed actor won an Emmy in 1993 and was also nominated in 1994 for playing Jimmy Brock, sheriff of the oddball town at the center of David E. Kelley\u2019s CBS dramedy \u201cPicket Fences.\u201d He also shared SAG Award nominations for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series for \u201cPicket Fences\u201d in 1995 and 1996 while also being nominated for outstanding performance by a male actor in a drama series in 1995.<\/p>\n

In the 2000s he guested on \u201cThe West Wing\u201d as a senator, on \u201cLaw & Order: SVU\u201d as a biased judge and on HBO\u2019s \u201cHuff\u201d as the father of Hank Azaria\u2019s\u00a0title character, replacing Robert Forster in the role. He recurred from 2006-09 on ABC\u2019s \u201cBrothers & Sisters\u201d as family patriarch William Walker and guested on \u201cThe Good Wife\u201d in 2014 and on \u201cMadam Secretary\u201d in 2015.<\/p>\n

In Robert Altman\u2019s \u201cMASH\u201d (1970), Skerritt played Duke Forrest, one of the insubordinate but excellent surgeons. The actor was third billed, after Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould but before Sally Kellerman and Robert Duvall.<\/p>\n

In Ridley\u2019s classic sci-fi horror film\u00a0\u201dAlien\u201d (1979), Skerritt played Dallas, the captain of the Nostromo, and was first billed, ahead of Sigourney Weaver; he had originally turned down the part when the project\u00a0had a low budget and no director attached. The actor also worked for Tony Scott, co-starring in the monumental 1986 hit \u201cTop Gun\u201d as\u00a0Commander Mike \u201cViper\u201d Metcalf, chief instructor at Miramar Naval Air Station\u2019s so-called top gun school,\u00a0where Tom Cruise\u2019s\u00a0Lieut. Pete \u201cMaverick\u201d Mitchell is training.<\/p>\n

The Robert Redford-directed 1992 adaptation of Norman Maclean\u2019s much-admired 1976 novella\u00a0\u201dA River Runs Through It\u201d afforded Skerritt with a relatively rare opportunity to do some serious acting in a film. He played a Presbyterian minister who is father to the characters played by Brad Pitt and Craig Sheffer, with the family only really united when they go fly fishing. Variety said: \u201cTom Skerritt discreetly reveals the loving core inside the reedy exterior of the boys\u2019 preacher father.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skerritt was among the celebrities who cameo\u2019d as themselves in Seth MacFarlane\u2019s scabrous 2012 comedy \u201cTed.\u201d\u00a0He appeared in supporting roles as an academic in the 2013 campus-set romantic comedy \u201cAt Middleton,\u201d starring\u00a0Vera Farmiga and Andy Garcia, and as Ulysses S. Grant in \u201cField of Lost Shoes\u201d (2014).<\/p>\n

The year after \u201cMASH\u201d he appeared in \u201cHarold and Maude\u201d as a motorcycle cop.<\/p>\n

He worked with Altman again in 1974\u2019s \u201cThieves Like Us,\u201d starring Keith Carradine and Shelley Duvall, and also appeared that year as a bank robber in Roger Corman cult classic \u201cBig Bad Mama,\u201d in which he was third billed after Angie Dickinson and William Shatner.\u00a0Skerritt starred with Ernest Borgnine and Shatner in 1975 horror film \u201cThe Devil\u2019s Rain.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Herbert Ross\u2019 esteemed 1977 film \u201cThe Turning Point,\u201d in which Anne Bancroft plays an aging dancer at New York\u2019s Ballet Theater and Shirley MacLaine her old friend who moved to Oklahoma City and\u00a0started a family, Skerritt played the MacLaine character\u2019s husband, earning the\u00a0National Board of Review\u2019s\u00a0best supporting actor award.<\/p>\n

Skerritt also had a notable role in a very different vein in the 1978 Cheech and Chong movie \u201cUp in Smoke,\u201d in which he played Strawberry, the Cheech character\u2019s cousin \u2014 a Vietnam vet who has a flashback during a\u00a0police raid, believing the cops to be\u00a0Viet Cong.<\/p>\n

The actor had a sizable role in David Cronenberg\u2019s 1983 adaptation of Stephen King\u2019s \u201cThe Dead Zone.\u201d Roger Ebert said: \u201cThe movie is filled with good performances [including] Tom Skerritt\u00a0as the local sheriff who wants to enlist this psychic to solve a chain of murders.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1988 he starred with Nancy Allen and Lara Flynn Boyle in \u201cPoltergeist III.\u201d<\/p>\n

He played the father of Julia Roberts\u2019 bride-t0-be in Herbert Ross\u2019 \u201cSteel Magnolias,\u201d a 1989 hit movie that found little use for the men in the cast; the actor\u00a0played the estranged father of Charlie Sheen\u2019s character in Clint Eastwood\u2019s \u201cThe Rookie\u201d (1990). In the steamy 1992 thriller \u201cPoison Ivy,\u201d he played a father who\u2019s all but ravished by the best friend of his daughter (Sara Gilbert): the evil, seductive Ivy, played by Drew Barrymore.<\/p>\n

In the sixth season of the hit NBC sitcom \u201cCheers\u201d (1987-88), Skerritt had a story arc as Evan Drake, boss to Kirstie Alley\u2019s Rebecca Howe, who has an unrequited crush on him.<\/p>\n

He starred as a small-town sheriff investigating a homicide in the well-regarded TV movie \u201cThe China Lake Murders\u201d (1990).<\/p>\n

After appearing in \u201cPicket Fences\u201d from 1992-96, he had a supporting role in\u00a0Robert Zemeckis\u2019 \u201cContact\u201d (1997), starring Jodie Foster. \u00a0The actor\u00a0appeared in a series of TV movies and had supporting roles in \u201cTexas Rangers\u201d (2001) and Antoine Fuqua\u2019s mercenary war drama \u201cTears of the Sun\u201d (2003), starring Bruce Willis and Monica Bellucci. In 2010 he appeared in Mario Van Peebles\u2019 \u201cRedemption Road\u201d; Variety said: \u201cTom Skerritt contributes a pitch-perfect supporting performance as the sage owner of a small-town honkytonk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thomas Roy Skerritt was born\u00a0in Detroit and attended Wayne State University and UCLA. He did a stint in the U.S. Air Force.<\/p>\n

He made his feature debut in the Korean War drama \u201cWar Hunt\u201d (1962), starring John Saxon and Sydney Pollack; Robert Redford had a small part, and Francis Ford Coppola had an uncredited role. He next appeared in the 1965 feature \u201cThose Calloways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skerritt made guest appearances on series including \u201cThe Alfred Hitchcock Hour,\u201d \u201cMy Three Sons,\u201d \u201cWagon Train,\u201d \u201cMy Favorite Martian,\u201d \u201cThe Fugitive\u201d and \u201cGunsmoke\u201d during the decade and on \u201cHawaii Five-O,\u201d \u201cCannon,\u201d \u201cBarnaby Jones\u201d and \u201cBaretta\u201d in the 1970s before his appearance in 1979\u2019s \u201cAlien\u201d dialed up his career.<\/p>\n

Skerritt was thrice married, the first time to\u00a0Charlotte Shanks (1957-72), the second time to\u00a0Sue Oran (1977-1992). Both of these marriages ended in divorce.<\/p>\n

He is survived by third wife Julie Tokashiki, whom he married in 1998; sons Andy and Matt, a director, and daughter Erin by Shanks; and son Colin by Oran.<\/p>\n

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