Tom Skerritt, Alien's Captain Dallas and Top Gun's Viper, Dies at 93

Tom Skerritt, the actor behind Captain Dallas in Alien and Viper in Top Gun, has died at 93. His family said he died of natural causes on Wednesday, October 21, in Seattle (The Hollywood Reporter). "We are heartbroken by his loss," they said, adding that he cared deeply about "imagination, creativity, storytelling, service, veterans, the natural world and helping others find and share their own voices."

His career ran more than six decades. The big break came in 1970, when he played Duke Forrest in Robert Altman's M*A*S*H. Years later, he won an Emmy in 1993 for playing Sheriff Jimmy Brock on Picket Fences.

Why does Tom Skerritt mean so much to sci-fi fans?

For a lot of us, he'll always be Dallas, the captain of the Nostromo in Ridley Scott's Alien (1979). He almost passed on it. He worried the effects would eat the whole budget, then changed his mind after watching Scott's first feature, The Duellists, which he called "a masterpiece" (The Hollywood Reporter). His tired, steady, very human captain is a big reason the Nostromo crew feels like real people before anything goes wrong in those air vents.

Seven years later, he played Mike "Viper" Metcalf in Top Gun. Viper is the instructor who keeps an eye on Tom Cruise's Maverick. It's not a huge part, and he still owns every scene he's in. He also played the minister father in A River Runs Through It, Julia Roberts' dad in Steel Magnolias, and turned up in Contact, The Dead Zone and SpaceCamp.

How are his costars remembering Tom Skerritt?

Julia Roberts, who played his daughter in Steel Magnolias, shared a still of the two of them on Instagram. Her caption was short and simple, "A shining light of a gentle man. RIP" (E! News).

Kathy Baker, who played his wife on Picket Fences, told People her heart was broken. "He taught me so much during our four years on Picket Fences," she said. Lauren Holly, who played his deputy on the show, wrote on Instagram that "He was our leader," and that he cared deeply for his family, both the one at home and the one at work.

What did Tom Skerritt do off screen?

He spent a lot of his later years helping other people tell their stories. He helped launch TheFilmSchool in Seattle. He also co-founded the Red Badge Project, which helps veterans work through PTSD, anxiety and depression by writing about what they've been through. He had served in the Air Force himself after high school. He was a champion of river conservation, too, including a documentary series called Reflections of the River that grew partly out of A River Runs Through It.

He is survived by his wife, Julie Tokashiki, his five children, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Our thoughts are with his family, his friends and everyone who worked with him.

Header image of Tom Skerritt at the 2014 Phoenix Comicon Fan Fest by Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons, cropped, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0.