Top Gun and Picket Fences star Tom Skerritt died on Wednesday, October 21. He was 93.
“We are heartbroken by his loss,” Skerritt’s family told The Hollywood Reporter in a Thursday, October 22, statement. “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 statement concluded, “He cared deeply about imagination, creativity, storytelling, service, veterans, the natural world and helping others find and share their own voices.”
Skerritt was renowned for his roles in the likes of M*A*S*H, Turning Point, Alien, Picket Fences and Top Gun.
“Being a blue-collar middle-class guy from Detroit, I had transferred out to UCLA as an English major who was interested in directing,” he told Film Comment in a 2016 interview, referring to his early experience in Hollywood. “I had done a little theater as an actor, only to overcome being shy and self-conscious, and never intended or thought I could make a living as an actor. I thought I would continue writing and continue acting if I was going to be a director.”
He continued, “I happened to be seen as an actor and I was hired for a little low-budget film and I thought, ‘Hey this is a great way to learn how to be a director, to be a participant in the actual reality of making a film.’ You can’t be a filmmaker purely by going to the university, as you know. The practical knowledge, the street knowledge you can gain by being on a set, being around that, being around the way people talk, the way they approach the business, was really the benefit I saw in it from the beginning.”
As Skerritt found success as a performer, he still yearned to step behind the cameras.
“I had directed some theater and some Canadian half-hour television show, couple of those I did. Also did a long-form two-day shoot for a cable network, also acted in it, which was hard to do,” he told the outlet at the time. “Most I’ve done for any one series was four or five, on Picket Fences, and for Chicago Hope.”
The actor noted, “I was heading in that direction to direct television series, but I really did not want to be a TV director, I wanted to do features, and that really pushed me back into writing more, trying to write something of my own to direct, and I kept getting acting jobs. I’ve only recently been able to finish screenplays that I started writing 20 years ago, because of the time factor, family requirements, that sort of thing.”
