Tom Skerritt is going to be 75 years old in late August.
It’s hard to believe, but when you think about, not surprising.
Myself, like the rest of the world, became familiar with Skerritt through Robert Altman’s 1970 anti-war classic M*A*S*H in which he played Captain “Duke” Forrest, who arrives at the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in Vietnam, er, Korea in a stolen jeep accompanied by Captain “Hawkeye” Pierce (Donald Sutherland).
But before M*A*S*H, the trim Detroit native had a busy work log, mostly in TV, appearing in episodes of Combat! (one of which was directed by Altman), Wagon Train, 12 O’Clock High, The Fugitive and even My Three Sons.
Skerritt’s show biz debut actually came in 1962’s Korean War drama War Hunt, alongside two other actors who went on to bigger and better things: Robert Redford and Sydney Pollack.
Throughout the years, Skerritt has been a steady anchor to many a project, whether in a supporting or bigger role.
M*A*S*H definitely turned things up a notch for him, as it did with almost everyone involved—Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Robert Duvall, Sally Kellerman, Bud Cort, and, of course, Altman. But with Skerritt, it really led to more and meatier roles on the tube—a Medical Center or TV movie here, a few episodes of The Virginian or Gunsmoke there. On occasion, Skerritt was cast in a movie: as Karl Malden’s revenge-minded son in Blake Edwards’ Wild Rovers, a cop in Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct trying stop a group of young arsonists in 1972’s Fuzz, and criminals in Altman’s Thieves Like Us and Big Bad Mama, the drive-in hit produced by Roger Corman.
After a diverse trio of roles that showcased his range—as a former ballet dancer in the Oscar-nominated The Turning Point, as Cheech Marin’s Vietnam veteran cousin in Up in Smoke and as a strict father whose daughter wants to be an ice skating champion in Ice Castles, Skerritt hit pay dirt again as the captain of the spacecraft Nostromo in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi/horror classic Alien.
For sure, the workload did not get any lighter for Skerritt following Alien’s positive impact. But while he worked a lot on both the small and large screen, tackling prestige projects and some less-than artistic projects, the actor never really became a leading man. But he seemed all right with his place in the world and his acting career.
“I have never really capitalized effectively on the successful films I have appeared in,” Skerritt has related. “And I have been in some pretty damn good films. What it comes down to is what someone told me years ago – ‘If you have one hit and the next two are not successful, then you have to start from scratch again.’ That’s what happened to me. It’s like a game, I suppose, and I’ve been doing OK.”
He’s also noted that he believes the trajectory of his career has been a mix of “concentration and luck.”
“There are many prominent people in this business who choose certain types of pictures and play a derivation of a certain character they always play so they are immediately identifiable — and they are commercially successful because of it. I have never pursued that. I just do films that I would pay five bucks to see.”
So, for every high profile role such as Viper in Top Gun or Sheriff Bennerman in The Dead Zone or Drum Eatenton in Steel Magnolias, there’s a part in Poison Ivy or Wild Orchid II: two Shades of Blue. And for every Emmy-nominated turn in Picket Fences as Sheriff Jimmy Brock or recurring appearances as Kirstie Alley’s boss on Cheers, there’s a TV movie turn as Joseph Kennedy in Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis or the part of a fire chief trying to save the Big Apple in Aftershock: Earthquake in New York.
And for something completely different, seek out Skerritt as the lead in 1982’s Fighting Back, playing a Philadelphia deli owner who takes matters into his own hands when he has had enough of the violence in his neighborhood. It’s great to see Skerritt go medieval in this Dino De Laurentiis City of Brotherly Love riff on Death Wish co-starring Patti LuPone, Michael Sarrazin, Alien costar Yaphet Kotto and comic Pat Cooper (?!). (Alas, you may have to do a lot of seeking: The film has yet to be issued on DVD because of music rights issues).
Undoubtedly, one of the best-remembered performances Skerritt has given came in 1992’s A River Runs Through It, directed by his old War Hunt compadre Robert Redford. In this lyrical, beautifully filmed adaptation of Norman Maclean’s novella, set between 1910 and 1935 against the striking backdrop of Montana, Skerritt portrays the Presbyterian minister father to two sons: ambitious Craig Sheffer, who has aspirations of being a writer and literature professor, and restless Brad Pitt, who eventually turns out to have a drinking and gambling problem. Skerritt attempts to impart his ideals to his boys while they partake in the meditative sport of fly fishing. Skerritt is quietly powerful in his role, extolling his morals and trying to guide his children in the direction he feels is right.
In his own quiet, unassuming way, Skerritt knocks it out of the park. The relationship between the religious man and his sons seems real, the emotions expressed truthful and the ties that bind powerful.
It’s so simple yet complex at the same time. Similar to how Tom Skerritt sees his gift for acting.
His mantra?
“One has the responsibility to oneself, to the writer, director and the people who put up the money, to put out the best of what one has experienced and understood about the human condition as it relates to the role one has been hired to portray.”