Scene-Stealing Actor Tom Skerritt

Actor, writer, and director Tom Skerritt was born on August 25, 1933 in Detroit, Michigan. Skerritt told Film Comment that shortly after graduating in 1951 from Mackenzie High School in Detroit at the age of 17, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy for a four year tour. Although the Korean War was on, Skerritt was stationed in the U.S. during his tour as an airman and learned to fly (although he was not a pilot).

(Tom Skerritt c 1980s Painting: A. Hamilton)

Courtesy of the G. I. Bill, Tom Skerritt began attending Henry Ford College in Dearborn, Michigan in 1956, then transferred to Wayne State University. He married Charlotte Shanks in 1957, and they moved to California when he transferred again to UCLA as an English major in 1960. Charlotte and Tom Skerritt’s son Andy Skerritt was born in 1962.

Skerritt had begun appearing in local productions, and was focused on a career in directing and writing – but in 1962, in his last semester at UCLA, he dropped out to appear in the Korean War movie War Hunt (1962). Many of the small cast of War Hunt went on to long and distinguished careers in film (television and the movies) – Robert Redford and John Saxon; as well as Sydney Pollack, Gavin MacLeod, and Tom Skerritt. Although they didn’t see each other often due to their busy work schedules and young families, Tom Skerritt and Robert Redford maintained a friendship after filming War Hunt due to their mutual interests in acting, directing, and nurturing independent film making.

More acting jobs came his way, and with a wife and family to support, Tom put his dreams of directing on hold, although he never gave up writing. Charlotte and Tom Skerritt’s daughter Erin was born in 1964, and son Matt in 1969. Although he appeared in a few movies during the 1960’s and 1970’s, most baby boomers and seniors will remember seeing Skerritt in one of his many appearances on episodes of popular TV series of the era, such as My Three Sons, Hawaii Five-O, S.W.A.T., and Baretta starring Robert Blake.

During these early years in his career, Tom Skerritt often appeared in an episode of a popular series that had other current or future stars in it:

• My Favorite Martian (1964) starring Ray Walston, with Marlo Thomas in a guest spot. 30 years later, Ray Walston and Skerritt would work together again on his 1990’s TV series Picket Fences; and 40 years later, Marlo Thomas and Skerritt both guest-starred as judges on the same episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2004).
• On an episode of Mannix (1967) starring Mike Connors titled Warning: Live Blueberries, Tom Skerritt and members of The Buffalo Springfield band (Stephen Stills, Neil Young, Richie Furay) also appeared.
• The episode title The Knot on the western TV series Lancer in 1969 also guest-starred Martin Sheen. Sheen and Tom would both appear in the 1983 thriller The Dead Zone, and Skerritt guest-starred as Senator Chris Carrick on an episode of Martin Sheen’s TV series The West Wing in 2004, 35 years after they first worked on Lancer.
• Tom Skerritt, Mickey Rooney, Barbara Feldon, Susan Saint James, and Alan Oppenheimer all appeared on the same 1970 episode of The Name of the Game.
  
• Tom Skerritt appeared on Bonanza for the first time in 1964. When Skerritt guest-starred on an episode of Bonanza again in 1973 as Corporal Bill Tanner, Tim Matheson was appearing in a recurring role as Griff King.
• The Time Tunnel (1966) starring James Darren, guest-starring Lee Meriwether. Lee Meriwether was a regular on Barnaby Jones, which Skerritt also guest-starred on in 1975. And more than 50 years after his appearance on The Time Tunnel, Tom Skerritt and James Darren both appeared in the drama Lucky (2017).

Below, Tom Skerrit as a WWII pilot in the 1960s’s TV series 12 O’Clock High.

 (Tom Skerritt 1967 12 O’Clock High)

Although handsome enough to be a leading man, Skerrit was a dedicated student of the craft of acting and already carving out a career for himself that would include scene-stealing supporting roles as a character actor. He was was a frequent guest star on the following series during the 1960’s and 1970’s, each time playing a different character: 

• Combat! – Tom Skerritt appeared on Combat! 6 times between 1962-1967.
• Death Valley Days – 5 episodes between 1963-1968. Right, Tom Skerritt on Death Valley Days. 
• The F.B.I. – 4 episodes of The F.B.I. between 1966-1972
• Gunsmoke – 5 appearances on Gunsmoke between 1965-1972.
• Cannon – On the 3 episodes of Cannon between 1971-1975 that Tom Skerritt appeared, some of his guest co-stars included Vincent Van Patten and Paul Michael Glaser.
• The Virginian – Tom Skerritt made 6 appearances on The Virginian between 1962-1971.
• 12 O’Clock High – 5 appearances between 1964-1967; starring Chris Robinson, Paul Burke, and Robert Lansing. Other guest stars in the episodes of 12 O’Clock High that Tom Skerritt appeared in included Beau Bridges and Bradford Dillman. 

A few of the movies that Tom appeared in during the 1960’s include the drama One Man’s Way (1964) starring Don Murray, and the western Those Calloways (1965) starring Brian Keith, with Linda Evans in the cast.

In the Korean War comedy MASH (1970), Tom Skerrittt co-starred as Duke Forrest, along with Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Sally Kellerman, and Robert Duvall; both Skerritt and Robert Duvall had appeared in the same episode of Run For Your Life a couple of years earlier in 1968. 

During the early 1970’s, Skerritt’s movies included The Wild Rovers (1971) with Ryan O’Neal and Joe Don Baker. He appeared as Det. Bert Kling in Fuzz (1972), a police procedural movie based on the Ed McBain 87th Precinct series. Skerritt’s co-stars in Fuzz were Burt Reynolds, and Raquel Welch as Det. Eileen McHenry.

In 1972, Charlotte and Tom Skerritt were divorced after 15 years of marriage. According to an article in The Seattle Times, Charlotte had developed a mental illness and for much of the previous decade Skerritt had struggled with working and trying to be the caregiver for their 3 young children; he often brought his children on set with him.

Keith Carradine and Tom Skerritt co-starred in two movies in 1974 – the crime drama Thieves Like Us (1974) with Louise Fletcher, and the crime comedy Run, Run, Joe! (1974).

(Tom Skerritt & Angie Dickinson 1974 Big Bad Mama)

That same year, Skerritt appeared in another crime comedy – Big Bad Mama (1974), starring Angie Dickinson, William Shatner, and Sally Kirkland. The next year, William Shatner and Tom Skerritt co-starred in the horror film The Devil’s Rain (1975), along with John Travolta. Tim Matheson (Bonanza), Barbara Rush (Peyton Place), and Skerritt appeared in the Richard Widmark western The Last Day (1975), along with Robert Conrad, Richard Jaeckel, and Loretta Swit (his co-star from MASH). 

Tom Skerritt told The Seattle Times that he married his second wife Susan (Sue) Aran in Rome in 1976; their son Colin was born in 1978. During the early years of their marriage the Skeritt’s had homes in the Santa Monica Mountains and in British Columbia.

In the latter half of the 1970’s, Skerritt co-starred in the romantic drama The Turning Point (1977) with Shirley MacLaine. He also appeared in the stoner comedy Up in Smoke (1978); the romantic drama Ice Castles with Robby Benson; and the TV action movie Maneaters Are Loose! (1978) with Diana Muldaur and Dabney Coleman, who had been in the same TV episodes as Skerritt of Death Valley Days (1968) and the Fugitive (1965).

Tom Skerritt’s biggest movie role of the 1970’s was that of the starship captain “Dallas” in the sci-fi monster (literally) hit movie Alien (1979) co-starring Sigourney Weaver, John Hurt, Harry Dean Stanton, and Yaphet Kotto. Alien brought in more than $203 million dollars and was made on a budget of just $11 million. 

The Dead Zone to Picket Fences (1980-1996)

Tom Skerritt, Ellen Burstyn and Gordon Pinsent co-starred in the biographical drama Silence of the North (1981); Ellen Burstyn had appeared in an episode of the western TV series Laramie 18 years earlier, in 1963. Skerritt’s Alien co-star Yaphet Kotto appeared with him in the crime drama Fighting Back (1982), along with Patti LuPone and Michael Sarrazin. Skerritt’s TV hospital drama series Ryan’s Four co-starring Tim Daly, Nicolas Coster, and Dirk Blocker was cancelled after only 5 episodes in 1983.

The Dead Zone (1983) starring Christopher Walken, Martin Sheen (who had appeared on an episode of Lancer with Skerritt in 1969), Brooke Adams, Anthony Zerbe, and Nicholas Campbell, featured now 50+ Tom Skerritt as Sheriff Bannerman. Filmed in Niagara-on-the Lake, The Dead Zone was a modest hit with audiences. This clip from The Dead Zone features Campbell, Skerritt, and Walken. (Graphic Content Warning)

Throughout the 1980’s and the remainder of his 50+ years, Tom Skerritt appeared in several TV movies such as Calendar Girl Murders (1984) co-starring Sharon Stone, Robert Morse, and Alan Thicke; and A Touch of Scandal (1984) with Angie Dickinson, Robert Loggia, and Don Murray (his-co-star from 1964’s One Man’s Way).

Skerritt’s feature films in the 1980’s included The Parent Trap II (1986) with Hayley Mills; the western Poker Alice (1987) with Elizabeth Taylor and George Hamilton; the comedy Maid to Order (1987) starring Ally Sheedy, Beverly D’Angelo, Michael Ontkean, and Valerie Perrine; and the ’50’s romantic thriller The Big Town (1987) with Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, Tommy Lee Jones, Bruce Dern, and Lee Grant.

One of the biggest box-office hits of the 1980’s was the Air Force romantic drama Top Gun (1986) starring Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer, Anthony Edwards, Michael Ironside, Tim Robbins, and Meg Ryan. Tom Skerritt co-starred in Top Gun as a tough Air Force flight instructor, perhaps hearkening back to his own days 30+ years before in the U.S. Air Force during the 1950’s. Made on a budget of $15 million, Top Gun brought in over $350 million at the box office.

Tom Skerritt and his second wife Sue had begun visiting Skerritt’s brother in Seattle, Washington and ended up buying a property on Lopez Island, Washington (south of Victoria, British Columbia and north of Seattle, Washington). In the latter part of the 1980’s, they built a bed & breakfast and lived there part-time. 

During the late 1980’s Skerritt’s television and movie career, which had never been idle, picked up steam. He had a recurring role as Rebecca’s (Kirstie Alley) boss Evan Drake on the hit comedy Cheers from 1987-1988. He appeared in several more TV movies as well as playing actress Sally Field’s husband on the box-office hit ensemble weeper Steel Magnolias (1989). Their co-stars included Shirley MacLaine (from 1977’s The Turning Point), Olympia Dukakis, Dolly Parton, Daryl Hannah, Julia Roberts, Sam Shepard, and Dylan McDermott. Dylan McDermott and Tom Skerrit would both later appear in the TV mini-series The Grid (2004). Sally Field, Tom Skerrit, and Dylan McDermott are featured in this clip from Steel Magnolias.

As the 1980’s ended and the 1990’s began, Tom Skerritt appeared in the CIA thriller TV movie Red King, White Knight (1989) with Max Von Sydow and Helen Mirren. He co-starred in the action-comedy movie The Rookie (1990) with Clint Eastwood and Charlie Sheen, and co-starred in the TV mystery-thrillers The China Lake Murders (1990) and Child in the Night (1990) with JoBeth Williams, Season Hubley, and a young Elijah Wood.

Sue and Tom Skerritt divorced in 1992, the same year he appeared in no less than 5 feature films, 2 TV movies, and began starring in his own TV series. Among his on-screen film projects released that year was the thriller Poison Ivy (1992) starring Drew Barrymore as the title character; Sara Gilbert, Cheryl Ladd and Leonardo DiCaprio had small roles. The rom-com Singles (1992) featured a large ensemble cast with Skerritt, Bridget Fonda, Campbell Scott, Kyra Sedgwick, Matt Dillon (Skerritt’s other co-star in 1987’s The Big Town), Bill Pullman, Eric Stoltz, Jeremy Piven, Peter Horton, and Ally Walker. Singles was filmed in Seattle, near Skerritt’s home.

In the critically acclaimed feature film A River Runs Through It (1992) – directed by Skerritt’s War Hunt (1962) co-star and friend, Robert Redford – Tom is the family patriarch, minister Rev. Maclean. Brad Pitt and Craig Sheffer play Skerritt’s on-screen sons, while Brenda Blethyn plays his wife.

The role that Tom Skerritt may be best remembered from is as Sheriff Jimmy Brock on Picket Fences (1992-1996). Other regular cast members on Picket Fences were Kathy Baker (Skerritt’s on-screen wife), Costas Mandylor, Lauren Holly, Holly Marie Combs, Don Cheadle, and Ray Walston. Walston and Skerritt had worked with each other 28 years earlier when he appeared in 1964 episode of My Favorite Martian. For his performances as the leading actor in the drama Picket Fences, Tom won the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1993. During the run of Picket Fences, Skerritt directed 3 episodes of the series and his son Matt Skerritt appeared in one of the episodes he directed.

After a very busy decade of work and change in his personal life; Tom Skerritt’s 50+ years and his 16-year-marriage to second wife Susan (Sue) Aran were both over as 1992 came to a close.

Picket Fences ended in 1996 and 62-year-old single “sex symbol” Tom Skerritt told People that he was looking for a woman of intelligence, humor and maturity.

“I have met some very bright younger women but there’s just so much disparity in terms of experience. Confidence comes with age.”

He also spoke about the screenplays that he had recently finished after starting to write them 20 years earlier, because he’d had no time due to work and family commitments.

Tom Skerritt was a co-owner of the Idle Spur restaurant and Crested Butte Brewery in Crested Butte, Colorado from approximately 1996 until it closed in the 2000’s; his daughter Erin (from his first marriage to Charlotte Shanks) and her husband Randy Garcia helped to run the restaurant with Garcia’s family.

Contact to Brothers & Sisters  (1997-2016)

(Tom Skerritt 1994 Photo: Alan Light | Flickr Some rights reserved)

Directing was what Tom Skerritt had envisioned his career would be back in his early 1960’s days at UCLA, before his acting career took off. One of Skerritt’s first film projects after his television series Picket Fences ended in 1996 was co-starring in and directing the TV drama Divided by Hate (1997).

Skerritt’s biggest movie in the late 1990’s, thanks to baby boomers and their children , was the big-budget, big box office success feature film Contact (1997), starring Jodie Foster.

Contact‘s cast included Matthew McConaughey, William Fichtner, Rob Lowe, David Morse, and John Hurt, whom Skerritt had co-starred with in Aliens (1979). Tom Skerritt played the character of David Drumlin, Science Advisor to the President.

Tom Skerritt turned 65 in 1998 and married Warner Bros. studio executive Julie Tokashiki, 30 years his junior. According to the Lodi News-Sentinel, Skerritt and Tokashiki had met while he was starring on Picket Fences. The couple built a new home for themselves outside Seattle, Washington in 2000.

Tom could be seen on the big screen in the feature film The Other Sister (1999) with Diane Keaton, Hector Elizondo, Juliet Lewis, Juliet Mills, and Dina Merrill.

The biographical drama TV movie Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (2000) starred Joanne Whalley (Jackie Onassis), Tim Matheson (John F. Kennedy), Frances Fisher (Janet Lee Bouvier Auchincloss), Andrew McCarthy (Robert “Bobby” Kennedy), and Tom Skerritt as the Kennedy family patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy. Matheson had appeared with Tom Skerritt before, in an episode of Bonanza in the 1960’s and in the movie The Last Day (1975).

2002 was another busy year with film releases for Skerritt. The independent drama Tuscaloosa (2002) drama filmed in Boulder, Colorado included Tom and his son Colin Skerritt in the cast. Skerritt also co-starred in the romantic comedy-drama Changing Hearts (2002) with his former Picket Fences co-star Lauren Holly, as well as Faye Dunaway and Ian Somerhalder. But his biggest film that year may have been the HBO biography Path to War (2002) about President Lyndon Johnson. In Path to War, Skerritt co-starred again with Donald Sutherland (his co-star from MASH), as well as Alec Baldwin and Felicity Huffman.

His 2003 feature films Tears of the Sun co-starred Bruce Willis, and Swing with Jacqueline Bisset. Skerritt’s biggest role in 2003 may have taken place off-screen, when he co-founded the non-profit program TheFilmSchool in Seattle, Washington. TheFilmSchool provided intensive training in screenwriting and directing for independent artists, and Skerritt was of the instructor; his old friend Robert Redford joined TheFilmSchool Advisory Board in 2008. The program ended in 2019.

Skerritt worked steadily during the remainder of the 2000’s, appearing in films and on TV. He guest-starred in an episode of the 2007 TV series The Dead Zone starring Anthony Michael Hall.

(Tom Skerritt Photo By the Red Badge Project: Naval Sea Systems Command | Public Domain)

Tom Skerritt’s highest profile role on television during the 2000’s was in a recurring role on the TV family drama series Brothers & Sisters.

He played William Walker, the dead patriarch/husband of widow Sally Field on Brothers & Sisters from 2006-2009. Skerritt and Field had played a husband and wife before in the movie Steel Magnolias (1989). Among the cast of Brothers & Sisters were Calista Flockhart, Ron Rifkin, Patricia Wettig, and Rob Lowe, who had been a regular on The West Wing in 2003 when Skerritt guest-starred on that series.

Feature films with Tom Skerritt in the late 2000’s included the comedy Bonneville (2006) with Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, Joan Allen, Tom Wopat, and Christine Baranski.

Skerritt’s on-screen appearances slowed down in the 2010s, likely due to him being an active senior raising a young child with his third wife, Julie Tokashiki. He told The Seattle Times in 2012 that they adopted daughter Helen (Emiko) as an infant five years previously (approximately 2007-2008). 

Despite this, Tom could be seen in a recurring role as Jimmy Ford on the crime series Leverage (2010-2012) starring Timothy Hutton, and in 3 movies in 2012, among them a co-starring role in the western drama Soda Springs starring Jay Pickett, and a cameo as himself in the comedy Ted (2012) starring Mark Wahlberg. The movie trailer for Soda Springs, below, features Jay Pickett, Victoria Pratt, and Tom Skerritt.

79-year-old Skerritt was inspired by his concern for returning soldiers suffering from PTSD in the Iraq war to create the Red Badge Project in 2012, an extension of his TheFilmSchool non-profit foundation. The Red Badge Project helps returning soldiers and veterans with PTSD to work out the war through storytelling, character development, writing, acting, directing, and photography.

Never afraid of multiple challenges, 80-year-old Tom Skerritt told Broadway Buzz in 2013 that he and his wife Julie, 5-year-old daughter Helen, and their 100-pound Swiss Mountain dog had just moved to New York City for the first time so he could make his Broadway debut in an adaptation of John Grisham’s bestselling novel A Time to Kill in 2013. Skerritt played the character of seasoned lawyer and functioning alcoholic Lucien Wilbanks in A Time to Kill.

Skerritt also had a co-starring role in the romantic comedy At Middleton (2013) starring Andy Garcia, Vera Farmiga and Peter Riegert, and the drama Redwood Highway (2013) with Shirley Knight.

In the Civil War drama Field of Lost Shoes (2014), Skerritt portrayed Ulysses S. Grant and was reunited with his Picket Fences (1992-1996) co-star Lauren Holly. He was reunited with more former co-stars with a recurring role as James Paisley on The Good Wife (2014) starring Juliana Margulies (The Grid, 2004) and Christine Baranski (Bonneville, 2006). Tom Skerritt reprised his Alien (1979) character Dallas in a voice role on the video game Alien: Isolation (2014).

 (Tom Skerritt 2014 Photo: Gage Skidmore | Flickr Some rights reserved)

Most recently Tom Skerritt could be seen on an episode of Madam Secretary (2015) as Patrick McCord, with stars Tea Leoni and Tim Daly (Skerritt’s former co-star in the 1983 series Ryan’s Four). He played a 91-year-old man in the drama Day of Days (2017), and co-starried in the drama Lucky starring Harry Dean Stanton (Skerritt’s 1979 Alien‘s co-star), David Lynch, Ron Livingston, Ed Begley Jr., Beth Grant, and James Darren, whose TV series The Time Tunnell Skerritt had guest-starred on 50 years previously, in 1966.

Skerritt was executive producer and starred in the drama East of the Mountains (2021). His last movie appearance was a supporting role in the rodeo film Broke (2025) starring Wyatt Russell, Mary McDonnell, and Dennis Quaid.

Tom Skerritt died of natural causes on October 21, 2026 at the age of 93. 

Note: This article was first published as a 3-part series in 2016 as Celebrating Seniors – Tom Skerritt is 83. It has been updated with new & additional content.