Donald Sutherland, the acclaimed Canadian actor who charmed and captivated generations of audiences in films such as MASH, Klute and The Hunger Games, has died at the age of 88.
The actor, whose long career spanned the 1960s to the 2020s, died Thursday, his son, actor Kiefer Sutherland, announced on social media.
“I never let myself be intimidated by a role, good, bad or ugly. He loved what he did and did what he loved, and you can never ask for more than that,” he wrote on X.
A tall man with a deep voice, piercing blue eyes and a mischievous smile, Donald Sutherland moved effortlessly from character roles to romantic roles opposite Jane Fonda and Julie Christie.
Among his best-known roles were Hawkeye Pierce in Robert Altman’s MASH, set in a military field hospital during the Korean War, and a desperate father in Robert Redford’s Oscar-winning directorial debut, Ordinary People.
He won over a new generation of fans with his portrayal of the despotic President Coriolanus Snow in The Hunger Games and its sequels. It was a role he actively sought.
“I wish I could say thank you to all the characters I’ve played, thank them for using their lives to light up my life,” Sutherland said in his speech accepting an honorary Lifetime Achievement Oscar in 2017.
“Cinema legend”
The son of a salesman and a mathematics teacher, Donald McNichol Sutherland was born on July 17, 1935 in St John, New Brunswick. Raised in Nova Scotia, on the northeast coast of Canada, he performed in school productions at university and later studied acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
After small roles on British television, he made his Hollywood breakthrough as a psychopath posing as officer Vernon Pinkley in the 1967 war film The Dirty Dozen. MASH was released in 1970 and made Sutherland, who identified with the film’s anti-war message, a star.
Outspokenly critical of the Vietnam War, Sutherland teamed up with actress Jane Fonda, with whom he had a relationship and was his co-star in Klute, to found the Free Theater Associates in 1971. Banned by the military in because of their political opinions. Views, they performed in venues near military bases in Southeast Asia in 1973.
Documents declassified in 2017 showed that Sutherland was on the National Security Agency’s watch list from 1971 to 1973.
“I thought I was going to be part of a revolution that was going to change cinema and its influence on people,” Sutherland told the Los Angeles Times.
Sutherland’s best performances include that of a detective in Alan Pakula’s Klute, where he met Fonda, and alongside Julie Christie as a grieving couple in Nicolas Roeg’s psychological horror film Don ‘t Look Now.
Tributes poured in after his death was announced on Thursday.
Ron Howard, who directed Sutherland in Backdraft, called him “one of the most intelligent, interesting and captivating screen actors of all time.”
British actress Helen Mirren, who starred with Sutherland in 2017’s The Leisure Seeker, described him as a “screen legend” and a colleague turned friend.
“He had a wonderful, inquisitive brain and great knowledge on a wide variety of subjects,” she told Variety. “He combined this great intelligence with a deep sensitivity, and with a seriousness about his profession as an actor,”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, speaking to reporters in Nova Scotia, said Sutherland “was a man with a strong presence, brilliance at his craft and truly, truly a great Canadian artist.”
Sutherland has won an Emmy, two Golden Globes and a BAFTA. He was married three times and had five children, including Kiefer. Her memoir, Made Up, But Still True, is due out in November.
