One of the most prolific actors of the last half century has died. Generations of movie and TV fans have known Donald Sutherland from an eclectic mix of films and television series, playing roles ranging from tortured leading men to sardonic pot smokers. Sadly, Sutherland died on Thursday at the age of 88. His passing was confirmed by Deadline; no cause of death was given.
The Canadian-born Sutherland studied drama in England, and made his earliest screen appearances in BBC and Hammer productions. His Hollywood breakthrough was his role in The Dirty Dozen, the Lee Marvin-led war film about a group of convicts recruited for a suicide mission during World War II.
A few years after The Dirty Dozen, Sutherland starred in Robert Altman’s MASH, one of the defining films of the early 1970s. This war film was a satire; set during the Korean War, it was intended as a spoof of the Vietnam War and military policy of the time, with Sutherland starring as Hawkeye Pierce, the latest addition to the team of doctors in an overworked and very rowdy MASH unit. The film was a massive hit, and spawned an even more popular TV series (although there Hawkeye was played by Alan Alda).
MASH made Sutherland an instant star, and he continued to make big movies all through the 1970s, including the hit thriller Klute, the cult classic horror film Don’t Look Now, and the superb remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
That same year, Sutherland had a small but very memorable role in another era-defining hit: 1978’s National Lampoon’s Animal House. There Sutherland played a hippie college professor who introduced some of his students to drugs.
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Younger movie fans probably know Sutherland best as the evil President Snow from The Hunger Games franchise.
If we attempted to list all of Sutherland’s memorable performances, we would be here forever. A few of his other career highlights include Kelly’s Heroes, The Day of the Locust, Ordinary People, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, JFK, Outbreak, A Time to Kill, and The Italian Job.
On television he starred on countless TV movies, and was a member of the casts of shows like Dirty Sexy Money, Commander in Chief, and Crossing Lines. And, of course, Sutherland was also the father of fellow actor Kiefer Sutherland.
Sutherland’s body of work is enormous; it’s hard to imagine that anyone reading this doesn’t know him from sight or from the sound of his smooth voice, which he used to such great effect in films like The Hunger Games franchise. Remarkably, Sutherland never received an Oscar nomination in his entire career, despite all those acclaimed (and often award-winning) movies he starred in. He did receive an honorary award from the Academy in 2017.
That feels like an impossible oversight; he surely is one of the best actors in history never to be nominated for an Oscar. But proper Academy Award recognition or not, the work he did will endure for years to come.
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