Tom Skerritt, Best Actor Emmy® winner for his series “Picket Fences,” is one of the most versatile and acclaimed American actors of movies and TV. At UCLA Film School, he acted in theatre and began writing for screen as a means to understand the full embrace of his primary interest, directing film. While acting on stage, he was seen and hired to be in a small film where he met Robert Redford and Sydney Pollack. Soon after that film, he met Director Robert Altman, with whom he mentored as a filmmaker, which led him to be cast in “M*A*S*H.” Watching other actors in the Altman classic, Skerritt suggested one of those actors, Bud Cort, to Hal Ashby for “Harold And Maude,” then continued to mentor with Ashby. Other classic films followed; “Turning Point” (Best Supporting Actor Award, National Board of Review), “Alien”, “A River Runs Through It,” “Steel Magnolias,” “Top Gun,” and “Contact.”
In 1994 he received a Life Achievement Honor from UCLA. In 2007, a Life Achievement from Wayne State University was followed with a Laureate Award from The Rainier Club in Seattle. In 2011, he received the Saturn Best Guest Actor Award - TV.
Skerritt continues to act, but his private interests have expanded to the creative vibrancy of Seattle and the inherent sociological implications of the most influential of all media, the movies. In 2004, along with other Hollywood transplants, he founded The Film School in Seattle, a school focused on Storytelling centering on Film.
From the success of that school, he has recently taken Storytelling to PTS VETS at Fort Lewis, (JBLM), in Tacoma, Washington.
Recently, Tom Skerritt starred in “A Hologram for the King” alongside Tom Hanks and directed by Tom Tykwer along with guest appearances on “Madam Secretary” and “The Good Wife.”
