Actor Tom Skerritt, pictured above in 2018, has died.

Chris Delmas/AFP via Getty Images

cover caption

toggle caption
i

Chris Delmas/AFP via Getty Images

There’s no avoiding the phrase rugged with Tom Skerritt. There was the mustache, the jaw, the crinkly eyes, and the cool authoritarian bearing he introduced to memorable roles as commanding officers, dads and cops.

Skerritt died of pure causes on Wednesday, according to a assertion from a consultant. He was 93 years previous.

He was Captain Dallas in Alien. Viper in Top Gun. An enlistee in the unique film M*A*S*H (enjoying one of the few characters who did not transition to the later tv collection.) A Vietnam vet in the Cheech and Chong stoner basic, Up In Smoke. He performed small city sheriffs in the film The Dead Zone and on the TV collection Picket Fences, for which he won an Emmy in 1993.

And he was a dad in Ice Castles, Steel Magnolias and A River Runs Through It.

Skerritt described himself as a blue-collar child from Detroit who served in the Air Force before attending UCLA and turning to theater. He spent his early days in Hollywood showing in tv exhibits, from My Three Sons to The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and hanging out with the likes of Robert Redford and director Hal Ashby, who solid Skerritt in Harold and Maude (as a cop, of course).

In actual life, Skerritt promoted impartial movie and theater in the Pacific Northwest, where he lived. He co-founded The Red Badge Project, a program for veterans to take storytelling programs and share their experiences.