Donald Sutherland, veteran actor and father of Kiefer Sutherland, useless at 88

Actor Donald Sutherland, who starred in movies together with “Klute,” “M*A*SH*,” “Odd Individuals” and, extra just lately, performed the evil President Snow in “The Starvation Video games” franchise, has died at age 88.

Sutherland’s son, actor Kiefer Sutherland, posted the information to social media.

“With a heavy coronary heart, I let you know that my father, Donald Sutherland, has handed away,” Sutherland wrote. “I personally assume one of the crucial necessary actors within the historical past of movie. By no means daunted by a job, good, dangerous or ugly. He cherished what he did and did what he cherished, and one can by no means ask for greater than that. A life properly lived.”

Born on July 17, 1935, in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, Donald Sutherland received his begin in performing as a pupil and went on to a prolific profession that included almost 150 movie credit and over 40 tv roles.

His first performing roles have been within the early tv sequence “Man of the World” and “Suspense.” He had extra small roles throughout tv in movie all through the Sixties earlier than touchdown the position of Vernon L. Pinkley within the 1967 World Battle II traditional movie, “The Soiled Dozen.”

Donald Sutherland then performed Military surgeon Hawkeye Pierce in director Robert Altman’s 1970 movie model of “M*A*S*H,” which impressed the traditional TV sequence. The position launched a sequence of movie roles and initiatives for the actor all through the Seventies, together with the drama “Klute” in 1971, through which he starred alongside Jane Fonda, who gained the Finest Actress Oscar for her position.

In 1980, Donald Sutherland starred reverse Mary Tyler Moore within the Robert Redford-directed drama “Odd Individuals,” which additionally starred Judd Hirsch and 20-year-old Timothy Hutton, who grew to become the youngest-ever Finest Supporting Actor Oscar-winner for his position within the movie, considered one of 5 Academy Awards it gained.

The actor returned to Broadway in 1981 after his 1969 debut in “Buck White,” and starred within the Edward Albee-adapted play of Vladimir Nabokov’s novel, “Lolita.”

Following Broadway, Sutherland continued to star in lots of notable movies all through the Nineteen Eighties and Nineteen Nineties, together with “A Dry White Season” in 1989 alongside Marlon Brando, and in author/director Oliver Stone’s controversial “JFK” in 1991, with Kevin Costner, Kevin Bacon and Tommy Lee Jones.

Within the 2000s, Donald Sutherland’s profession in movie continued to thrive with roles within the motion comedy “Area Cowboys” in 2000, the Civil Battle drama “Chilly Mountain” in 2003, through which he starred in with Nicole Kidman, and the heist movie “The Italian Job” in 2003, with Charlize Theron.

Sutherland additionally portrayed Mr. Bennett within the 2005 movie adaptation of “Satisfaction & Prejudice,” with Keira Knightley, Matthew Macfadyen, Rosamund Pike and extra.

Sutherland reached a brand new technology of followers when he starred in 4 movies in “The Starvation Video games” motion drama franchise, taking part in Coriolanus Snow, the tyrannical president of the fictional Panem. The franchise’s star-studded forged included Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Stanley Tucci and extra.

Whereas talking with “Good Morning America” in 2015 about “The Starvation Video games: Mockingjay — Half 1,” Donald Sutherland mentioned of taking part in President Snow, “he isn’t misunderstood, he runs a totalitarian state — he is an oligarch,” including, “I simply needed to be part of it. I needed to finish my life being a part of one thing that I believed would possibly catalyze and revolutionize younger individuals.”

Tom Blyth, who performed a younger Coriolanus Snow in “The Starvation Video games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” paid tribute to Donald Sutherland on Instagram and wrote, “Donald Sutherland took place as near mastering the craft of performing as anybody will get.”

“So could genius performances,” he continued. “I by no means had the honour of figuring out him personally, however it was the honour of a lifetime to comply with in his footsteps. Thanks sir for birthing one of many nice film characters of all time.”

Donald Sutherland’s ultimate on-screen position was because the no-nonsense Choose Isaac Parker within the 2023 Western tv miniseries “Lawmen: Bass Reeves,” reverse star David Oyelowo.

In 2017, Sutherland was introduced with an Honorary Academy Award for his physique of labor, and was launched and lauded onstage by his “The Starvation Video games” co-star and fellow Oscar winner Lawrence.

“This is essential to me, to my household,” Sutherland mentioned on the time. “It is like a door is opened and a cool, splendidly recent breath of air has are available in. I want I might say thanks to the entire characters that I’ve performed. Thank them for utilizing their lives to tell my life,” he added.

“And naturally, thanks to Francine Racette, from whom all the pieces has come — that is my household — from whom all the pieces has come and to whom all the pieces is owed,” he continued, referring to his spouse. “I’ve been a companion to her for over 45 years. And in all that she has supported me along with her intelligence, her instinct, her instruction, her capacity to make me snigger within the direst of conditions. Her extraordinary sense of style, her residual perception in me. Amongst all of those, her capacity to soak up and maintain the extraordinary ups and downs of this loopy film life we’ve gone via. She deserves a medal for that.”

Sutherland’s memoir, titled “Made Up, however Nonetheless True,” to be printed by Penguin Random Home, is due in November.

Donald Sutherland is survived by his 5 kids: twins Kiefer and Rachel Sutherland, whom he shares with the late actress Shirley Jean Douglas, in addition to Rossif, Roeg and Angus Redford Sutherland, whom he shares with Racette.