From Newsgroup: rec.arts.tv



Tom Skerritt, 'Picket Fences' and 'Alien' Star, Dies at 93
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Tom Skerritt, who starred in the TV series "Picket Fences" and
appeared in movies ranging from "MASH" to "Alien," "Top Gun,"
"A River Runs Through It" and "Ted," died on Wednesday of
natural causes, Variety has confirmed with his publicist. 
He was 93.

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's CBS dramedy
"Picket Fences." He also shared SAG Award nominations for
outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series for
"Picket Fences" in 1995 and 1996 while also being nominated for
outstanding performance by a male actor in a drama series in
1995.

In the 2000s he guested on "The West Wing" as a senator, on
"Law & Order: SVU" as a biased judge and on HBO's "Huff" as the
father of Hank Azaria's title character, replacing Robert
Forster in the role. He recurred from 2006-09 on ABC's
"Brothers & Sisters" as family patriarch William Walker and
guested on "The Good Wife" in 2014 and on "Madam Secretary" in
2015.

In Robert Altman's "MASH" (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.

In Ridley's classic sci-fi horror film "Alien" (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 had a low budget and no director
attached. The actor also worked for Tony Scott, co-starring in
the monumental 1986 hit "Top Gun" as Commander Mike "Viper"
Metcalf, chief instructor at Miramar Naval Air Station's
so-called top gun school, where Tom Cruise's Lieut. Pete
"Maverick" Mitchell is training.

The Robert Redford-directed 1992 adaptation of Norman Maclean's
much-admired 1976 novella "A River Runs Through It" 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: "Tom Skerritt discreetly reveals the loving core
inside the reedy exterior of the boys' preacher father."

Skerritt was among the celebrities who cameo'd as themselves in
Seth MacFarlane's scabrous 2012 comedy "Ted." He appeared in
supporting roles as an academic in the 2013 campus-set romantic
comedy "At Middleton," starring Vera Farmiga and Andy Garcia,
and as Ulysses S. Grant in "Field of Lost Shoes" (2014).

The year after "MASH" he appeared in "Harold and Maude" as a
motorcycle cop.

He worked with Altman again in 1974's "Thieves Like Us,"
starring Keith Carradine and Shelley Duvall, and also appeared
that year as a bank robber in Roger Corman cult classic "Big Bad
Mama," in which he was third billed after Angie Dickinson and
William Shatner. Skerritt starred with Ernest Borgnine and
Shatner in 1975 horror film "The Devil's Rain."

In Herbert Ross' esteemed 1977 film "The Turning Point," in
which Anne Bancroft plays an aging dancer at New York's Ballet
Theater and Shirley MacLaine her old friend who moved to
Oklahoma City and started a family, Skerritt played the
MacLaine character's husband, earning the National Board of
Review's best supporting actor award.

Skerritt also had a notable role in a very different vein in the
1978 Cheech and Chong movie "Up in Smoke," in which he played
Strawberry, the Cheech character's cousin - a Vietnam vet who
has a flashback during a police raid, believing the cops to be 
Viet Cong.

The actor had a sizable role in David Cronenberg's 1983
adaptation of Stephen King's "The Dead Zone." Roger Ebert said:
"The movie is filled with good performances [including] Tom
Skerritt as the local sheriff who wants to enlist this psychic to
solve a chain of murders."

In 1988 he starred with Nancy Allen and Lara Flynn Boyle in
"Poltergeist III."

He played the father of Julia Roberts' bride-t0-be in Herbert
Ross' "Steel Magnolias," a 1989 hit movie that found little use
for the men in the cast; the actor played the estranged father of
Charlie Sheen's character in Clint Eastwood's "The Rookie" (1990).
In the steamy 1992 thriller "Poison Ivy," he played a father who's
all but ravished by the best friend of his daughter (Sara
Gilbert): the evil, seductive Ivy, played by Drew Barrymore.

In the sixth season of the hit NBC sitcom "Cheers" (1987-88),
Skerritt had a story arc as Evan Drake, boss to Kirstie Alley's
Rebecca Howe, who has an unrequited crush on him.

He starred as a small-town sheriff investigating a homicide in the
well-regarded TV movie "The China Lake Murders" (1990).

After appearing in "Picket Fences" from 1992-96, he had a
supporting role in Robert Zemeckis' "Contact" (1997), starring
Jodie Foster.  The actor appeared in a series of TV movies and had
supporting roles in "Texas Rangers" (2001) and Antoine Fuqua's
mercenary war drama "Tears of the Sun" (2003), starring Bruce
Willis and Monica Bellucci. In 2010 he appeared in Mario Van
Peebles' "Redemption Road"; Variety said: "Tom Skerritt
contributes a pitch-perfect supporting performance as the sage
owner of a small-town honkytonk."

Thomas Roy Skerritt was born in Detroit and attended Wayne State
University and UCLA. He did a stint in the U.S. Air Force.

He made his feature debut in the Korean War drama "War Hunt" (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 "Those Calloways."

Skerritt made guest appearances on series including "The Alfred
Hitchcock Hour," "My Three Sons," "Wagon Train," "My Favorite
Martian," "The Fugitive" and "Gunsmoke" during the decade and on
"Hawaii Five-O," "Cannon," "Barnaby Jones" and "Baretta" in the
1970s before his appearance in 1979's "Alien" dialed up his career.

Skerritt was thrice married, the first time to Charlotte Shanks
(1957-72), the second time to Sue Oran (1977-1992). Both of these
marriages ended in divorce.

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.



<https://variety.com/2026/film/news/tom-skerritt-dead-picket-fences-alien-1236921694/>





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