Tom Skerritt, Star of MAS*H, Alien and Top Gun, Dies at 93

Tom Skerritt died on Wednesday of natural causes, his family announced. He was 93. The news was first reported by The Hollywood Reporter.

Skerritt worked in films for more than six decades. His screen career began in 1962 with the war drama War Hunt, and he went on to appear in some of the best-known titles of the following decades. Few actors of his generation moved so easily between genres.

In 1970 he played Southern surgeon Duke Forrest in M*A*S*H, the Robert Altman comedy set in a army hospital during the Korean War. Nine years later he was cast as Captain Dallas, commander of the spacecraft Nostromo, in the science-fiction horror film Alien. In 1986 he played Mike "Viper" Metcalf, one of the flight instructors, in Top Gun.

Television gave him a different kind of role. On the CBS drama Picket Fences, which ran in the 1990s, he played Jimmy Brock, the sheriff of a small Wisconsin town. He won an Emmy Award in 1993 for the part, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Skerritt was born in 1933. He moved from the big screen to the small one and back again, and he was working on screen right up to the end of his life. His family has asked for privacy at this time.

Fans who want to revisit his work will find his three best-known film roles, plus Picket Fences, readily available across the major streaming and rental services.