Tom Skerritt, 'Alien' and 'Picket Fences' Star, Dies at 93

Tom Skerritt, first-billed ahead of Sigourney Weaver in Ridley Scott's "Alien" and an Emmy winner for "Picket Fences," died Wednesday of natural causes. He was 93. Variety confirmed the death with his publicist.

Skerritt spent six decades as Hollywood's most reliable weathered face — the lean, mustachioed actor who could play sheriff, captain, preacher or patriarch without breaking a sweat. He collected roles the way other actors collect awards.

What did he win?

He won an Emmy in 1993 for playing Sheriff Jimmy Brock, top lawman of David E. Kelley's oddball CBS dramedy "Picket Fences," and earned another nomination in 1994. He shared SAG ensemble nominations for the show in 1995 and 1996, plus a solo male-actor nomination in 1995.

His film trophies were fewer but pointed. For Herbert Ross's "The Turning Point" (1977), playing Shirley MacLaine's husband, he took the National Board of Review's best supporting actor award.

Which roles defined him?

The run is hard to match:

• Duke Forrest in Robert Altman's "MASH" (1970), third-billed after Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould, before Sally Kellerman and Robert Duvall.
• Dallas, captain of the Nostromo, in "Alien" (1979). He originally turned the part down when the project had a low budget and no director attached. That worked out.
• Commander Mike "Viper" Metcalf, Top Gun's chief instructor, in Tony Scott's 1986 hit.
• The Presbyterian minister father to Brad Pitt and Craig Sheffer in Robert Redford's "A River Runs Through It" (1992). Variety wrote: "Tom Skerritt discreetly reveals the loving core inside the reedy exterior of the boys' preacher father."
• Strawberry, the Vietnam-vet cousin with a police-raid flashback, in Cheech and Chong's "Up in Smoke" (1978).
• The local sheriff in David Cronenberg's "The Dead Zone" (1983). Roger Ebert praised the film's "good performances [including] Tom Skerritt as the local sheriff who wants to enlist this psychic to solve a chain of murders."

He worked with Altman again in "Thieves Like Us" (1974), played a bank robber in Roger Corman's cult classic "Big Bad Mama" that same year, and cameo'd as himself in Seth MacFarlane's "Ted" (2012).

What about television?

Plenty. He recurred as family patriarch William Walker on ABC's "Brothers & Sisters" (2006-09), played the father of Hank Azaria's title character on HBO's "Huff" (replacing Robert Forster), and guested as a senator on "The West Wing," a biased judge on "Law & Order: SVU," plus turns on "The Good Wife" (2014) and "Madam Secretary" (2015). On "Cheers" (1987-88), he had a story arc as Evan Drake, the boss Kirstie Alley's Rebecca Howe fruitlessly adored.

Later credits included "Contact" (1997) with Jodie Foster, "Tears of the Sun" (2003) with Bruce Willis, and "Redemption Road" (2010), where Variety noted he "contributes a pitch-perfect supporting performance as the sage owner of a small-town honkytonk."

Where did he start?

Thomas Roy Skerritt was born in Detroit, attended Wayne State University and UCLA, and served in the U.S. Air Force. His feature debut came in the Korean War drama "War Hunt" (1962), alongside John Saxon and Sydney Pollack, with a small Robert Redford part and an uncredited Francis Ford Coppola. Years of television guest spots — "Gunsmoke," "The Fugitive," "Hawaii Five-O" — preceded "Alien," which dialed up the career.

He was married three times: to Charlotte Shanks (1957-72), Sue Oran (1977-92), both ending in divorce, and Julie Tokashiki, whom he married in 1998. He is survived by Tokashiki; sons Andy, Matt (a director) and Colin; and daughter Erin.

Skerritt leaves a filmography of roughly steady excellence — the kind actors build by saying yes to good directors and no, at least once, to a low-budget horror script that became a classic anyway.