There's no avoiding the word rugged with Tom Skerritt. There was the mustache, the jaw, the crinkly eyes, and the cool authoritarian bearing he brought to memorable roles as commanding officers, dads and cops.
Skerritt died of natural causes on Wednesday, according to a statement from a representative. He was 93 years old.
He was Captain Dallas in Alien. Viper in Top Gun. An enlistee in the original movie M*A*S*H (playing one of the few characters who didn't transition to the later television series.) A Vietnam vet in the Cheech and Chong stoner classic, Up In Smoke. He played small town sheriffs in the movie The Dead Zone and on the TV series Picket Fences, for which he won an Emmy in 1993.
And he was a dad in Ice Castles, Steel Magnolias and A River Runs Through It.
Skerritt described himself as a blue-collar kid from Detroit who served in the Air Force before attending UCLA and turning to theater. He spent his early days in Hollywood appearing in television shows, from My Three Sons to The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and hanging out with the likes of Robert Redford and director Hal Ashby, who cast Skerritt in Harold and Maude (as a cop, of course).
In real life, Skerritt promoted independent film and theater in the Pacific Northwest, where he lived. He co-founded The Red Badge Project, a program for veterans to take storytelling courses and share their experiences.
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