Tom Skerritt, 'Alien' and 'Top Gun' Star, Dies at 93
Skerritt played Captain Dallas in 'Alien,' Viper in 'Top Gun,' and Duke Forrest in 'M*A*S*H.' He won an Emmy for 'Picket Fences.'
Tom Skerritt, the actor who played Captain Dallas in Alien and Viper in Top Gun, died of natural causes on Wednesday. He was 93.
His family confirmed his death in a statement shared with PEOPLE on Thursday. “Our family is deeply saddened to share that Tom Skerritt passed away on October 21, 2026, from natural causes,” the family said. “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.” The family asked for privacy and said information about a memorial would come later.
Skerritt worked for more than six decades, in more than 170 film and television productions. His breakthrough came in 1970 as Duke Forrest, the wisecracking surgeon in Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H. Nine years later he took the helm of the Nostromo as Captain Arthur Dallas in Ridley Scott’s Alien, the steady authority figure at the center of a landmark of science fiction.
In 1986 he played Commander Mike “Viper” Metcalf, the commanding officer who pushed Maverick in Top Gun. His other film roles included The Turning Point, Up in Smoke, Ice Castles, The Dead Zone, Steel Magnolias, A River Runs Through It and Contact.
On television, he starred as Sheriff Jimmy Brock on the CBS drama Picket Fences, winning the Emmy for lead actor in a drama series in 1993. He also played Rebecca Howe’s boss Evan Drake in the sixth season of Cheers, and appeared on Gunsmoke and The Twilight Zone.
Born August 25, 1933, in Detroit, Skerritt served in the Air Force before studying theater at UCLA. He lived in the Pacific Northwest, where he promoted independent film and theater and co-founded The Red Badge Project, a program that teaches storytelling to veterans.
