While in his last year at UCLA,Tom Skerritt debuted as a film actor in 1962’s
War Hunt, an independent, anti-war film that also featured New York theatre actors Robert Redford and Sydney Pollack. Since then, Skerritt has appeared in more than 35 feature films, including Robert Altman’s "MASH", A River Runs Through It, Harold and Maude, Top Gun, Steel Magnolias and Contact.
He won an Emmy Award for Best Actor for his role in CBS’s "Picket Fences." Although heavy work demands do not leave much time to spare, Skerritt teaches screenwriting at the film school that he co-founded in Seattle with award-winning writer, Stewart Stern (Rebel Without A Cause). The school's aim is to teach aspiring writers "how to tell a story well" and conducts two intensive three-week sessions a year, also with a speakers series, attracting such filmmakers as Sidney Pollack, Ed Zwick, Ed Solomon and Chris McQuerrie.