Donald Sutherland (1935-2024)
The veteran film and television actor Donald Sutherland, whose career spanned half a decade, from "M*A*S*H" to "The Hunger Games", has died. He was 88 years old. His son, actor Kiefer Sutherland, confirmed his death on Thursday.
Born in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada, on 17th July 1935, Sutherland first worked as a disc jockey at his radio station at age 14. Originally an engineering student at the University of Toronto, Sutherland moved to England, where he started acting in school plays. He graduated in 1956 and studied acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. Sutherland began appearing in West End plays. He then took minor roles in British film and television. Sutherland moved to Los Angeles and continued to drift until a series of war movies changed his trajectory. His first film in America was "The Dirty Dozen", where he played a psychopathic officer impersonator Vernon Pinkley.
In 1970, both "Kelly's Heroes" and "M*A*S*H" came out, the latter being a huge hit and spawned a successful TV series as Sutherland thrust into the spotlight. Sutherland's A-list status peaked in the 1970s as he starred in films by the best directors of the decade - though they didn't always do their best work with him. One of his best performances was that of a detective in Alan Pakula's "Klute". It was then during the shooting of "Klute" that he met his co-star, actress Jane Fonda, with whom he had a relationship that lasted for three years. His next big film was Nicolas Roeg's psychological thriller "Don't Look Now", followed by the international spy comedy "S*P*Y*S" in 1974 and "Day of the Locust" in 1975. As his acting career took off, Sutherland acted in another big-budget war movie, "The Eagle Has Landed" with Michael Caine and Robert Duvall in 1976, and subsequently had a small part in John Landis' 1977 farce "The Kentucky Fried Movie", written by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker, who later became directors of "Airplane!"
In 1978, Sutherland starred in three diverse movies, such as"The Great Train Robbery", a heist comedy with Sean Connery and Lesley-Anne Down, the horror-thriller remake "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" with Brooke Adams and Jeff Goldblum and the much-loved early-'60s fraternity comedy "National Lampoon's Animal House", also directed by Landis. In the latter, he had a supporting but crucial part as a stoned professor of English literature. Following his star turn in the 1980 comedy "Nothing Personal" with Suzanne Somers from "Three's Company", Sutherland's next film was to be one of his greatest. In "Ordinary People", a generational drama, which marks actor Robert Redford in his directorial debut that won four Oscars, including Best Picture, he played Calvin Jarrett, a man grieving for one son and coping with another's suicide attempt.
Throughout the 1980s, Sutherland continued to act in films. In 1991, he had a pivotal role in Ron Howard's firefighter drama "Backdraft", where he played an imprisoned pyromaniac who aids investigators by saying that the arsonist they are hunting must also be a firefighter. In the 1990s, Sutherland acted in such movies as "JFK", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Six Degrees of Separation". In 1995, he received an Emmy and a Golden Globe for playing Russian Colonel Mikhail Fetisov in HBO's serial-killer thriller telemovie "Citizen X", co-starring Stephen Rea and Max von Sydow. In the same year, he had a supporting role in Wolfgang Peterson's virus outbreak film "Outbreak" with Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo and Morgan Freeman.
He also scored an Emmy nomination for his lead role in Lifetime's 2006 miniseries "Human Trafficking", in which he co-starred with Mira Sorvino and Robert Carlyle. Sutherland kept appearing in films such as "A Time to Kill", "Shadow Conspiracy", "Fallen", "Instinct", "The Italian Job (2003)", "Cold Mountain", "Fierce People", "Pride and Prejudice (2005)" and "Horrible Bosses". However, his next role would be his best-known. In 2012, Sutherland took on the role of President Coriolanus Snow, the fascist dictator of Panem in "The Hunger Games", which he then reprised in the sequels "Catching Fire" and "Mockingjay Parts 1" and "2" as the main antagonist. The films based on the YA novels by Suzanne Collins were international hits. They broke box office records and catapulted its lead actress, Jennifer Lawrence, to stardom. For the rest of his life, Sutherland continued to appear in films, such as "Ad Astra" and "Moonfall", while also making several appearances on the small screen.
Sutherland was married three times and had five children. Three of them, including Kiefer, would follow in their father's footsteps as actors. Though he was never nominated for an Oscar, however, in 2017, he received an Honorary Award.
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