Last week, Canada, and indeed the artistic world, lost of the finest actors of his generation, Donald Sutherland, who passed away in Miami, Florida, at the age of 88.
When writing remembrances like this, I generally offer a generalised overview of their career, whilst singling out their greatest achievements as I go through this timeline, yet I could write a book on Donald Sutherland and still do his career little justice, so this short article will have to suffice.
Donald McNichol Sutherland was born to humble beginnings in Saint John, New Brunswick, and spent his early years in the province before moving to Nova Scotia with his family, where he then spent his adolescence and showed a keen interest in the performance arts. He would eventually end up studying at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and worked on a number of plays and TV shows in the U.K., before landing his big break in the classic 1967 war film The Dirty Dozen, which just so happened to be shot in Britain. Following the film’s international success, Sutherland took the opportunity to move to Hollywood 1968, and found enduring success from the 1970’s onwards.
It did not take long, as Sutherland starred in two war films in 1970, Kelly’s Heroes and M*A*S*H, playing the lead in the latter, which was also directed by the legendary Robert Altman and turned out to be a huge box office success, even spawning the classic TV adaptation starring Alan Alda. This decade also featured arguably Sutherland’s most artistically notable role in Nicolas Roeg’s psychologically horror-thriller Don’t Look Now, in which he and Julie Christie play grieving parents who move to Venice for work not long after their young daughter tragically drowned. Both actors offer career-defining performances in their vulnerability, while it also features one of the most famous sex scenes in the history of cinema, which was certainly controversial at the time, but today is lauded for its realism and emotionally intensity.
These were not the only seminal roles for Sutherland in the 1970’s, as he also featured in the hugely influential John Landis comedy Animal House and the science-fiction horror Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the latter of which is today considered one of the greatest adaptations ever made, and a staple of the genre as a whole. He also had the chance to work with legendary Italian filmmakers Federico Fellini and Bernardo Bertolucci in Fellini’s Cassanova and 1900 respectively, with both releasing in 1976.
After having taken the world by storm in the 1970’s, Sutherland certainly did not stop there, beginning the 1980’s with Robert Redford’s multi-Academy Award-winning classic Ordinary People, and in the decades that followed starred in notable features such as; A Dry White Season (1989) alongside Marlon Brando; JFK (1991) by Oliver Stone; Six Degrees of Separation (1993), co-starring an up-and-coming Will Smith; the hit disaster film directed by Wolfgang Peterson, Outbreak (1995); another box office hit with A Time to Kill, which also starred his son Kiefer (1996); and acclaimed Jane Austen adaptation Pride & Prejudice (2005). To younger audiences, however, Sutherland is perhaps best known for his lauded villainous turn as President Coriolanus Snow in the initial four adaptations of Suzanne Collins books The Hunger Games.
Donald Sutherland was a prolific performer until the day he died, appearing in an estimated 141 films and 42 TV shows, which are astounding numbers in their own rights. However, while he did win an Emmy award for his performance in the 1995 HBO film Citizen X, perhaps most astounding of all is that Sutherland never received an Academy Award nomination for his work, despite delivering, at times, genre-defining performances, and is unanimously considered of one of the greatest actors to never receive a nomination. Nevertheless, the Academy thankfully recognised as much, giving him an Honorary Award for his lifetime achievements in cinema.
Sutherland’s legacy lives on not only in cinema and television, but also though his family, many of whom are active in the industry. This includes his sons Angus, who is a producer, Rufus, and the aforementioned Kiefer, who are both actors, with Kiefer being the best known among them, having starred in many films and TV shows over the years, most notable among them being his Emmy-winning role as Jack Bauer in the action drama series 24.