'Hunger Games' 'M*A*S*H' Actor Was 88

Donald Sutherland, whose performances in films such as MASH POTATOES, Ordinary people And The hunger Games proven that he could portray the sinister, the sympathetic, the comic or the tragic with equal aplomb, has died. He was 88 years old.

Sutherland died Thursday in Miami after a long illness, said CAA's Missy Davy. The Hollywood Reporter.

Remarkably, Sutherland was never even nominated for a competitive Oscar, although the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences made up for this oversight by presenting him with an honorary statuette in November 2017 at the Governors Awards.

A prodigious actor who often appears in three to five films a year, the lanky Canadian-born star has demonstrated great autonomy over his six-decade career. His first characters, like crazy/dazed Pvt. Vernon Pinkley in The dirty dozen (1967), Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce, anti-establishment army doctor, in MASH POTATOES (1970) and the hippie tank commander Oddball in Kelly's heroes (1970), were mavericks.

With his distinctive baritone and crystal blue eyes, Sutherland was also effective in provocative roles, such as when he played a private detective who falls in love with a prostitute (his romantic partner at the time, Jane Fonda) in the film 'Alan J. Pakula. Clute (1971).

In Nicolas Roeg's horror thriller Don't look now (1973), he and Julie Christie wowed audiences in a peculiar bedroom scene, one of the steamiest sex sequences in cinema history. And for Federico Fellini, he played the role of Casanova in 1976.

It's Sutherland's turn to play the irreverent, martini-loving Hawkeye in MASH POTATOES opposite Elliott Gould in the role of “Trapper” John McIntyre brought him international fame at age 35.

“It showed the concept of war without showing war,” he said of Robert Altman's classic film in a 1970 interview on the CBC show. Telescope. “When you're in a field station like we were, it's insane to see human bodies flying into a camp that are destroyed for no reason. This kind of madness has created an environment, a sort of mini-society, plunged into chaos. For many people, this represents the type of society we have today.

Taking a different approach, Sutherland was empathetic as a suburban Chicago lawyer trying to keep his family together in Robert Redford's firm. Ordinary people (1980) and as a compassionate doctor in Richard Pearce's film Threshold (nineteen eighty one). But here he was playing a manic arsonist in Ron Howard's film. Backdraft (1991).

Sutherland said he was continuing the role of the despotic President Snow in The hunger Games (2012) after his agent sent him the script. (He would return for all three sequels.)

“It wasn’t offered to me,” he said. said GQ in a 2014 interview. “I love reading scripts and this captured my passion. I wrote them a letter. The role of the president may have had a line in the script. Maybe two. It made no difference. I thought it was an extremely important film and I wanted to be a part of it. I thought it might wake up an electorate that has been sleeping since the 70s.

“I hadn’t read the books. To be honest, I didn't know them. But they showed my letter to the director, Gary Ross, and he thought it would be a good idea for me to do it. He wrote these wonderfully poetic scenes in the rose garden, and they formed the mind and spirit of Coriolanus Snow.

The agile Sutherland also played the memorable role of a man on the run in Philip Kaufman's 1978 remake. Invasion of the body snatcherstobacco teacher at Animal House (1978), the French painter Paul Gauguin in The wolf at the door (1986) and a South African school teacher who changes his mind about apartheid in A white and dry season (1989).

Interviewed by Anderson Cooper in a 2017 profile for 60 minutes on finding inspiration in a role, Sutherland replied: ” I can not find it. It finds me. I mean, I'll read it. And suddenly it starts to bubble up inside me. And then it gets violent. And then it becomes affectionate. And it's an extraordinary thing. It's getting more and more exciting. It is delicious.”

Donald McNichol Sutherland was born July 17, 1935 in Saint John, New Brunswick. He had polio when he was very young, then missed fourth grade when he had to stay home because of rheumatic fever. His father, Frederick, was a salesman and his mother, Dorothy, a mathematics teacher.

When he was 12, the family moved to Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, and he attended Bridgewater High School and then the University of Toronto, where he studied engineering and drama before receiving his degree in 1958.

After working in regional theater in Ontario, he attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, but dropped out after a year, then spent five years practicing his craft in English and Scottish repertory theaters .

“My first offer for a film was in 1962,” he said. GQ in a tale he often told. “I auditioned for the producer, the writer, the director. And I came home and told my first wife, “I thought everything went well.” You never want to say you did well before you know anything.

“The next morning they were all on the phone saying how wonderful the audition was. And then the producer said, “We loved you so much that we wanted to explain to you why we didn’t cast you.” We've always thought of it as a guy-next-door type character, and we don't think you look like you've ever lived next door to anyone.

He said he was self-conscious about his appearance. When he asked his mother if he was handsome, she replied, “Your face has character.” »

During the play Spoon River AnthologySutherland was approached by producer Paul Maslansky to star in The Castle of the Living Dead (1964), a low-budget horror film shot in Italy. He played a soldier, a witch and an old man.

He later played a madman in Hammer Films. Die! Die! My dear (1965), with Tallulah Bankhead; appeared on British television on The Saint And The Avengers; and spoke like a mechanical voice on the telephone in A billion dollar brain (1967), starring Michael Caine as spy Harry Palmer.

The public noticed him when they saw him in The dirty dozen. In a scene with Lee Marvin and Robert Ryan, Pvt. Pinkley pretends to be a general and inspects the troops. Sutherland recalled that he was able to do the comic after another actor refused. “You with the big ears, you do it,” said director Robert Aldrich.

Canadian actor Christopher Plummer lent him money to travel to the United States and producer Ingo Preminger signed him up for MASH POTATOESeven before Gould or Altman were hired.

Then, in another anti-war film, he played Christ in Dalton Trumbo's heartbreaking film. Johnny has his gun (1971).

Director John Boorman implored him to play the role assigned to Burt Reynolds in Deliverance (1972), but he refused.

In an interview given in March 2018 to VultureSutherland explain that his torrid scene with Christie in Don't look now wasn't as sexually charged as it seemed.

“It was shot with undirected Arriflex cameras. We were alone in a room,” he said. “I don’t know about Julie, but I’m never naked in front of anyone!” I'm not even naked in front of my children. I'm naked in front of my wife, that's all. I was shy. For several very specific reasons, she was physically shy. But we overcame our shyness, walked into the room and stood like Adam and Eve waiting for someone to give us an apple.

His lengthy resume also included The split (1968); That of Paul Mazursky Alex in Wonderland (1970); Start the revolution without me (1970); Little Murders (1971), during a reunion with Gould; That of John Schlesinger The day of the grasshopper (1975), a scathing look at Hollywood; The eagle has landed (1976); That of Bernardo Bertolucci 1900 (1976); The eye of the needle (nineteen eighty one) ; Max Dugan returns (1983); That of Olivier Stone JFK (1991); A Time to kill (1996); as track coach Bill Bowerman in Without limits (1998); Clint Eastwood's Space Cowboys (2000); a remake of Pride and Prejudice (2005); American pistol (2005); Ask the dust (2006); The man on the train (2011); The leisure seeker (2017); And The burnt orange heresy (2020).

Sutherland started his own production company, but quickly decided it wasn't in his best interest. “For me, it’s better to find a director who wants to make a film,” he said. Drama-Logue review. “Sewing something for someone is like grabbing a dog by the tail and walking it down the street.”

In 1995, he won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his portrayal of the Soviet policeman in the HBO television film. Citizen. He received a Globe for playing Lyndon Johnson's Secretary of Defense, Clark Clifford, in the 2002 HBO miniseries. Path to war and starred as an insidious House Speaker opposite Geena Davis as the U.S. President in the 2005-06 ABC drama. Commander in chief.

More recently, Sutherland has found regular television work on Dirty and sexy money, The pillars of the earth, Pedestrian crossing lines, Ice, Trust (playing J. Paul Getty), The defeat And Attorney: Bass Reeves.

Survivors include his partner/wife since 1972, actress Francine Racette; his four sons, actors Kiefer Sutherland, Rossif Sutherland and Angus Sutherland and CAA director Roeg Sutherland; his daughter Rachel, a veteran post-production supervisor in Hollywood; and four grandchildren.

Sutherland was married to and divorced from actresses Lois Hardwick and Shirley Douglas (the mother of Kiefer and his twin, Rachel) before becoming romantically involved with Racette.

(Kiefer is named after Warren Kiefer, the director of Undead Castleand Roeg is named after Nicolas Roeg.)

As he closed his entertaining Oscar acceptance speech, Sutherland said he had been “assailed by the incessant questions of my mind, demanding whether I deserved this.”

“I finally found peace in the words of the great Benjamin Kubelsky, also known as Jack Benny, when he said, as I tell you now: 'I don't deserve this, but I suffer from… arthritis, and I don't deserve that either.