Donald Sutherland, veteran actor, dies at 88

(NEW YORK) Actor Donald Sutherland, who starred in such films as Klute, M*A*SH*, Ordinary People and, most recently, played the villainous President Snow in The Hunger Games franchise, has died in the age of 88.

Sutherland's son, actor Kiefer Sutherland, posted the news on social media.

With a heavy heart, I announce that my father, Donald Sutherland, has passed away, Sutherland wrote. I personally think he is one of the most important actors in the history of cinema. Never intimidated by a role, good, bad or ugly. He loved what he did and did what he loved, and you can never ask for more than that. A life well lived.

Born July 17, 1935, in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, Donald Sutherland got his start as a student and went on to a prolific career that included nearly 150 film credits and more than 40 television roles .

His first acting roles were in the early television series Man of the World and Suspense. He had more small television and film roles throughout the 1960s before landing the role of Vernon L. Pinkley in the classic 1967 World War II film The Dirty Dozen.

Donald Sutherland later starred as army surgeon Hawkeye Pierce in director Robert Altman's 1970 film version of M*A*S*H, which inspired the classic television series. This role launched a series of film roles and projects for the actor throughout the 1970s, including the 1971 drama Klute, in which he starred opposite Jane Fonda, who won the Academy Award for Best Actor. best actress for her role.

In 1980, Donald Sutherland starred alongside Mary Tyler Moore in the Robert Redford-directed drama Ordinary People, which also starred Judd Hirsch and 20-year-old Timothy Hutton, who became the youngest Oscar winner for best actor in a supporting actor for his role in the film, one of five Academy Awards he won.

The actor returned to Broadway in 1981 after his 1969 debut in Buck White, and starred in Edward Albee's play adapted from Vladimir Nabokov's novel, Lolita.

After Broadway, Sutherland continued to star in many notable films throughout the 1980s and 1990s, including A Dry White Season in 1989 alongside Marlon Brando, and in writer/director Oliver Stones' controversial JFK in 1991, starring Kevin Costner, Kevin Bacon and Tommy Lee Jones. .

In the 2000s, Donald Sutherland's film career continued to flourish with roles in the action comedy Space Cowboys in 2000, the Civil War drama Cold Mountain in 2003, in which he starred with Nicole Kidman, and the heist film The Italian Job in 2003., with Charlize Theron.

Sutherland also played Mr. Bennett in the 2005 film adaptation of Pride & Prejudice, starring Keira Knightley, Matthew Macfadyen, Rosamund Pike and more.

Sutherland reached a new generation of fans when he starred in four films in the action drama franchise The Hunger Games, playing Coriolanus Snow, the tyrannical president of the fictional Panem. The franchise's all-star cast included Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Stanley Tucci and more.

While speaking with Good Morning America in 2015 about The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, Donald Sutherland said of President Snow's role, he is not misunderstood, he runs a totalitarian state, he is an oligarch, adding: “I just wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to end my life being part of something that I thought could catalyze and revolutionize young people.

Tom Blyth, who played a young Coriolanus Snow in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Serpents, paid tribute to Donald Sutherland on Instagram and wrote: Donald Sutherland came as close to mastering the craft of acting as anyone.

The same goes for great performances, he continued. I never had the honor of knowing him personally, but it was the honor of my life to follow in his footsteps. Thank you sir for giving birth to one of the greatest cinema characters of all time.

Donald Sutherland's last on-screen role was as the pragmatic Judge Isaac Parker in the 2023 Western television miniseries Lawmen: Bass Reeves, opposite star David Oyelowo.

In 2017, Sutherland received an Honorary Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement, and was introduced and greeted on stage by his The Hunger Games co-star and Academy Award winner Lawrence.

“It’s very important to me, to my family,” Sutherland said at the time. It’s like a door opens and a breath of fresh, wonderfully fresh air comes in. I wish I could say thank you to all the characters I've played. Thank you for using their lives to enlighten my life, he added.

And of course, thank you to Francine Racette, from whom everything comes, it is my family from whom everything comes and to whom everything is owed, he continued, referring to his wife. I have been his partner for over 45 years. And in all of this, she supported me with her intelligence, her intuition, her teaching, her ability to make me laugh in the worst situations. His extraordinary sense of taste, his residual trust in me. Among all this, his ability to absorb and endure the extraordinary ups and downs of this crazy cinematic life we ​​have lived. She deserves a medal for that.

Sutherland's memoir, titled Made Up, but Still True, to be published by Penguin Random House, is expected to be released in November.

Donald Sutherland is survived by his five children: twins Kiefer and Rachel Sutherland, whom he shares with the late actress Shirley Jean Douglas, as well as Rossif, Roeg and Angus Redford Sutherland, whom he shares with Racette.

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