Tributes paid to actor Tom Skerritt as star of Alien and Top Gun dies aged 93
Oct 23, 2026
He was best known as a flight instructor in Top Gun
or the doomed Captain of Alien.
Emmy-winning actor Tom Skerritt has died on Wednesday
at 93 of natural causes, his family said.
The U.S. actor was twice nominated for an Emmy
for his tough-but-fair sheriff performance in TV's Picket Fences.
He won Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1993.
Skerritt also played the patient husband
of Shirley MacLaine in Turning Point.
Sally Field's husband instilled manias and an opportunist
who stands in the way of Jodie Foster's attempt
to communicate with extraterrestrial life in Contact.
Besides a prolific career in cinema, Skerritt was the narrator
in Our Town at Seattle's Intimate Theatre in 2004
and made his Broadway debut in 2013
in an adaptation of John Grisham's A Time to Kill.