Miscellaneous

Alien and Top Gun actor Tom Skerritt dies at 93

More than 170 credits across six decades made him the calm presence in loud films, he first turned down Alien as a picture that could have been directed by Ed Wood

Images

Tom Skerritt in 2010. Photograph: Reed Saxon/AP Tom Skerritt in 2010. Photograph: Reed Saxon/AP theguardian.com
Sigourney Weaver, Yaphet Kotto, John Hurt, Tom Skerritt and Ian Holm in Alien. Photograph: Ronald Grant Sigourney Weaver, Yaphet Kotto, John Hurt, Tom Skerritt and Ian Holm in Alien. Photograph: Ronald Grant theguardian.com

Tom Skerritt, the actor whose steady presence ran through M*A*S*H, Alien and Top Gun, has died at 93. His publicist confirmed to Variety that the cause was natural. The career behind the announcement spanned more than 60 years and more than 170 big- and small-screen credits. "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," his family said in a statement shared with People.

The pattern was set early. Skerritt served a four-year tour in the US air force before his 1962 screen debut in War Hunt, alongside Robert Redford and Sydney Pollack, and Robert Altman's M*A*S*H gave him his breakout in 1970. He very nearly skipped Alien. The two-million-dollar budget and an unfamiliar cast made him wary — "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 said in 2019 — because his training with Altman and Hal Ashby had taught him to weigh directors before signing. He took the part, and the film closed out his decade.

Top Gun's producers had doubts of their own. "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. Don't tell me, as a producer, what you think I'm going to be doing. You're going to get what you need." The 1980s and 1990s brought The Dead Zone, Steel Magnolias, A River Runs Through It and Contact, an Emmy for David E. Kelley's family drama Picket Fences, and Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations, with television work from The West Wing to Brothers & Sisters. His last film role came in 2025, in the western Broke with Dennis Quaid.

In 2012 he co-founded the Red Badge Project, which teaches veterans to process PTSD through storytelling. "I just got tired of talking about this if I could do something about it," he told CBS News. In 2021 he described himself more simply: "I'm just a lucky guy, man."