Tom Skerritt, the distinguished actor celebrated for his roles in Alien and Top Gun, has died at 93.
His publicist confirmed to Variety that the cause was natural causes.
“While the world knew Tom through his remarkable acting career, we knew him for his humor, curiosity, wisdom, generosity, and the love he brought into our lives,” a family statement provided to People said.
Over a career spanning more than six decades, he amassed over 170 film and television credits, winning an Emmy Award and earning Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations.
After a four-year tour in the U.S. Air Force, Skerritt made his film debut in the 1962 war drama War Hunt alongside Robert Redford and Sydney Pollack. His breakthrough arrived in 1970 with Robert Altman’s satirical hit M*A*S*H, a major box-office success nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Throughout the 1970s, he built a diverse résumé with roles in the cult dark comedy Harold and Maude, Altman’s crime drama Thieves Like Us, Roger Corman’s Big Bad Mama, and the Oscar-nominated ballet drama The Turning Point.
The decade culminated with a starring role in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi horror classic Alien—a project he initially declined due to its modest budget. “At two million bucks and with other actors that I don’t know about, this is a film that could have been directed by Ed Wood,” he recalled in a 2019 interview. “I was uncertain about it because my training with Altman and Ashby had preceded me, so I had that approach that I had absorbed from watching those two guys going about their work.”
The 1980s brought roles in David Cronenberg’s The Dead Zone, the sci-fi adventure SpaceCamp, the horror sequel Poltergeist III, and the female-led comedy-drama Steel Magnolias.
He also collaborated with Tony Scott on the 1986 blockbuster Top Gun, a role he nearly lost. “There was some question about me playing that role because I was … I think they used the word ‘laconic,'” he told Vulture in 2021. “It pissed me off. I went into it with [producer] Don Simpson, who was still alive at that point … don’t tell me, as a producer, what you think I’m going to be doing. You’re going to get what you need.”
In the 1990s, he reunited with Robert Redford for A River Runs Through It and shared the screen with Jodie Foster in Contact, Drew Barrymore in Poison Ivy, and Diane Keaton in The Other Sister.
He won an Emmy for his work on David E. Kelley’s family drama Picket Fences, which ran for four seasons.
The 2000s found him starring alongside Bruce Willis in Tears of the Sun and Kate Beckinsale in Whiteout, with television appearances on Will & Grace, The West Wing, and Brothers & Sisters.
His final film role was in the western drama Broke (2025), opposite Dennis Quaid.
In 2012, he co-founded the Red Badge Project, an initiative designed to help veterans process PTSD through storytelling. “It starts with that wanting to help someone else rather than talking about it,” Skerritt told CBS News. “I just got tired of talking about this if I could do something about it.”
“I’m just a lucky guy, man,” he reflected in 2021. “Strength is measured in how you confront your weaknesses. I have had a lot of weaknesses. I still have them.”