Sam Elliott vs. Tom Skerritt
Battle of the Ornery Old-Timers

Isn't it funny how in Hollywood Westerns, the crusty old sheriff is always so fond of saying, "This town isn't big enough for the both of us?" Especially given that Hollywood itself seems plenty big enough for lots of crusty old sheriffs.

Fametracker has already analyzed the "Battle of the Crusty Cowboys," in which Scott Glenn and Sam Shepard tussled for supremacy on the range. But where then does that leave Tom Skerritt and Sam Elliott?

Elliott, for certain, has a claim on primacy as, if not a cowboy, then at least as a "cowboy" -- which is to say, a loose cannon who plays by his own rules and follows his own code, whether riding horses, directing troops, or wrapping up murder investigations that the desk-bound cops back at the precinct were too shortsighted to solve.

After a career in the '70s as a heartthrob (he was once described in the book Shirtless! The Hollywood Male Physique as having a "super bod" -- and, no, we don't know where you can buy that book) Elliott rose to prominence in the 1980s playing TV cowpokes -- Dal Traven in The Shadow Riders and Chance McKenzie in The Yellow Rose. He later portrayed both Virgil Earp and Wild Bill Hickok. And his case as the Ur-Cowboy was certainly bolstered by his cameo role as "The Stranger" in The Big Lebowski, in which he visits wisdom upon Jeff Bridges's stoner hero.

Elliott's case hasn't been bolstered, however, by the longevity of Tom Skerritt. (Who, by the way, was born in 1933, according to the IMDb. 1933! That makes him seventy years old! Seventy! Evan Drake, Rebecca's old flame from Cheers, is now in his Depends years! And, truth be told, he's still a dashing old codger, one who we now suspect wouldn't be caught dead chasing Kirstie Alley around a Pier 1 Imports store.)

For starters, Skerritt has the advantage of having played a few landmark roles, which dot the cultural landscape: Evan Drake on Cheers; Commander Mike 'Viper' Metcalf in Top Gun; Sheriff Jimmy Brock in Picket Fences; and Dallas in Alien. Heck, we even remember him fondly as the hangdog sheriff in the original The Dead Zone -- the one with Christopher Walken, not Anthony Michael Hall.

For a time, Skerritt seemed destined to play a wider range of roles -- the kind of rough-and-ready, old-sexy male leads now played by, say, Billy Campbell. (It's not for nothing that Skerritt once male-modeled, and if you search hard enough you might still find one of his old photos inside a frame at your local department store.)

Of late, however, he seems to have retired out of hunk roles and into your standard assortment of cops and generals -- the latest of which being his turn as a barking army guy in the new film Tears of the Sun. Then again, the dude is apparently seventy years old (seventy!), so he's earned his retirement.

Sam Elliott, for his part, is a spring-chicken-esque fifty-nine years young. Which means he should have many more years of squinting, wearing Stetsons, and loping about in long leather overcoats.

Still, there's not much to choose from between these two. Between them, they've played all of the following roles, and we defy you to pick out who played whom: Ham McDonald, Captain Bucky O'Neil, Sam Houston, Brigadier General John Buford, General William Westmoreland, Congressman Tom Raskob, Sheriff Sam Brodie, Captain Wood, Commander Zach Burkstroom, General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, and Sam Houston.

That's right -- both Tom Skerritt and Sam Elliott have portrayed Sam Houston, in separate films.

Do we even need to say it? We rest our case.

Advantage: The one who played Sam Houston.