Emmy Award-winning actor Tom Skerritt died Wednesday at age 93 of natural causes, according to The Associated Press. Skerritt was known for a career spanning film, television and stage, with notable roles in "Alien," "Top Gun," "MASH," "The Turning Point," "Steel Magnolias" and "Contact."
He won an Emmy for outstanding lead actor in a drama series in 1993 for his work on "Picket Fences," one of two nominations for the show. Born in Detroit in 1933, Skerritt served four years in the U.S. Air Force before attending Henry Ford College, Wayne State University and UCLA, leaving school to pursue acting.
His family said in a statement that while the world knew him through his acting career, they knew him for his humor, curiosity, wisdom, generosity and the love he brought into their lives. Skerritt once described himself as "a character actor locked in a leading man's body," a compliment he said he always loved.
Onstage, he served as narrator in "Our Town" at Seattle's Intiman Theatre in 2004 and made his Broadway debut in 2013 in an adaptation of John Grisham's "A Time to Kill." The Associated Press wrote that he "nicely pulls off a charming disgraced and drunken lawyer" in the production. Funeral plans were not immediately available.
Sources: FOX5 Vegas
Original reporting: Las Vegas Review-Journal →
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