The Captain Who Never Got Home, and the Instructor Who Taught Maverick
Some actors are famous for one role. Tom Skerritt was in so many movies we loved that most of us never settled on a favorite. He has died at 93, and his family says it was from natural causes.
You may know him as the captain who didn't make it home, or as the man who told the hotshots at Top Gun what they were doing wrong. Either way, you trusted him the moment he walked on screen.
From the Air Force to Hollywood
Skerritt was born in Detroit in 1933, the youngest of three children. After high school he joined the U.S. Air Force and served from 1951 to 1955. He later studied at Wayne State University and UCLA, but he left UCLA without a degree so he could act.
His first film was War Hunt in 1962. His breakthrough came in 1970, when he played Captain Augustus Bedford "Duke" Forrest in Robert Altman's M\A\S\H*.
Two roles you remember
In Alien (1979), he played Captain Dallas, the calm commander of the Nostromo. Audiences met him as the steady leader and learned fast that nobody on that ship was safe.
Seven years later, in Top Gun (1986), he was Commander Mike "Viper" Metcalf, the flight instructor who has seen it all. He was never the loudest person in the room, and he never needed to be.
The sheriff who won an Emmy
He also gave us the best of the quiet, decent men. He was the minister father in Robert Redford's A River Runs Through It (1992), Sally Field's husband in Steel Magnolias, and the patient husband in Turning Point. He played the scheming opponent of Jodie Foster's character in Contact.
On television, he starred as Sheriff Jimmy Brock in Picket Fences from 1992 to 1996. In 1993 he won the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.
What he did off screen
Skerritt helped found TheFilmSchool in Seattle. He also co-founded the Red Badge Project, which helps veterans work through PTSD, anxiety and depression by writing about their experiences. In 2004 he narrated Our Town at Seattle's Intiman Theatre, and in 2013 he made his Broadway debut in A Time to Kill.
Years ago, he told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that he saw himself as "a character actor locked in a leading man's body."
The last word
His family remembered him for "his humor, curiosity, wisdom, generosity and the love he brought into our lives." He leaves his wife, Julie, five children, and a family of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
I think that line from his own life says it best. He was never the flashy one. He was the one you believed.