Donald Sutherland, the acclaimed Canadian actor who enchanted and enchanted generations of audiences in films such as MASH, Klute and The Hunger Games, has died aged 88.
The actor, whose long career spanned from the 1960s to the 2020s, died on Thursday, his son, actor Kiefer Sutherland, said on social media.
“Never be scared by a role, be it 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 leads alongside the likes of Jane Fonda and Julie Christie.
Among his best-known roles was 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 ruler President Coriolanus Snow in The Hunger Games and its sequels. It was a role he actively sought.
“I wish I could thank all the characters I’ve played, thank them for using their lives to inform my life,” Sutherland said in his speech upon receiving an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement in 2017.
‘Legend of cinema’
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 acted in school productions in college and later studied acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
After small roles on British television, he made his Hollywood debut as the psychopathic Vernon Pinkley, posing as an officer, 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.
Open in his criticism of the Vietnam War, Sutherland teamed up with actress Jane Fonda, with whom he was in a relationship and was his co-star in Klute, to found Free Theater Associates in 1971. Banned by the army because of his political views, they performed at 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 would be part of a revolution that would change cinema and its influence on people,” Sutherland told the Los Angeles Times.
Among Sutherland’s best performances were as 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 smartest, most interesting and captivating movie 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 who became a friend.
“He had a wonderful, curious brain and great knowledge on a wide variety of subjects,” she said, as quoted by Variety. “He combined this great intelligence with a deep sensitivity and 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, a brilliance in 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. His memoir, Made Up, But Still True, will be released in November.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
