Tom Skerritt turned 91 on August 25, 2024, and continues acting in films and TV. He has over 170 credits in all mediums including video games including many Oscar-winning films. You will most likely know him from Alien, Top Gun, M*A*S*H, Contact, A River Runs Through It, Tears of the Sun, The Dead Zone, Steel Magnolias, Picket Fences and Cheers. He has shared the screen with stars including Tom Cruise, Sigourney Weaver, Clint Eastwood, Jodie Foster, Bruce Willis, Robert Redford, Brad Pitt, Raquel Welch, Burt Reynolds, Matthew McConaughey, Nancy Allen, Elliott Gould and Robert Duvall. He served in the USAF from 1951 to 1955 and spent the majority of his time at Bergstrom Airfield in Austin, TX, as a Classifications Specialist.
He joined to be a pilot and attempted to follow in the footsteps of his older brother who was a P-51 Mustang pilot in WWII. Tom stated, “I was very proud of my older brother — he was more like a father than my father could be. The Air Force gave me a purpose. I learned so much about the country by just being in the Air Force. It is a wonderful frame of reference that informs my intelligence and how I look at life.” His time in service showed he needed a college education. He attempted to fly but wasn’t able to as he didn’t have the education including math and aircraft knowledge to do so.
Post-service he jumped into the creative world and graduated from UCLA. He used the GI Bill to get an education and move closer to his dream of acting. His first feature role was in War Hunt in 1962 and got his first TV credit in the western show Combat! just a year later. His career quickly progressed over the next decade with lots of roles in top-level shows of their day which included Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Laramie, The Virginian, Death Valley Days, Twelve O-Clock High, The Fugitive, Cannon and The F.B.I. These roles led to his breakout part in M*A*S*H as Captain Duke Forrest in the Oscar-winning film. His character grows in the film from a more judgemental individual to a person who comes to respect those around him for their talents. His career continued to move forward in the 1970s with roles in Fuzz, Harold and Maude and Up in Smoke with the pinnacle being Captain Arthur Dallas of the Nostromo in Alien. A feature film directed by Ridley Scott that set the stage for alien science fiction for the next 40 years. He even reprised the role in a video game called Alien: Isolation in 2014, which is some character longevity for sure.
The 1980s and ’90s treated Skerritt well as he was set on his path and picked up roles in many different shows and films of their time. These include Cheers, The Twilight Zone, The Hitchhiker and his own series on TV with Picket Fences, which was nominated for many awards such as a Primetime Emmy for Best Lead Actor in a Drama Series that he won in 1993. The show lasted four seasons and 87 episodes ran on CBS. Key films of the era he starred in include Top Gun as Viper, the head of the Top Gun school, The Dead Zone, a Stephen King novel adaptation, the controversial film Spacecamp, because of its release being so close to the Challenger accident, as the director of the program, The Rookie with Clint Eastwood and Charlie Sheen, Poltergeist III, another Oscar-winning film A River Runs Through It with Redford and Pitt and Contact with Foster and McConaughey.
Skerritt is known for his work ethic and always moving forward. In the 2000s he still pressed onward in film and TV, but also embraced non-traditional mediums such as video games. In 2005 he played a character in Gun, a best-selling and award-winning game for console systems such as XBOX 360, PS2, and Gamecube. The game featured actors such as Tom Jane, Ron Perlman, Kris Kristofferson and Lance Henriksen. The game sold over one million copies and likely led the way for more Western video games with its success. Skerritt portrayed a former Confederate soldier who leads a resistance against an evil leader to restore order and dignity in the Old West.
During the 2000s he also helped veterans process their trauma after returning from the wars overseas. The Red Badge program was at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Lakewood, Washington. The program had teachers come in and instruct the veterans on how best to share their stories. Skerritt brought in musicians to work with veterans and put their stories into lyrics with music. He dealt with challenges such as the military not letting veterans come to the program or viewing it as some soft, fluffy thing. Overall, the program gave veterans a place to trust and process their trauma away from the military environment.
Skerritt has lived a life of service and following his passion for acting through a staunch work ethic and professional attitude. He gave back to fellow veterans well into his career when he did not have to. He sets an example and moves forward with a positive outlook. We wish him well and continued success into his 90s.