Arguably the best actor never to have been nominated for an Academy Award, Donald Sutherland’s wry, arrestingly off-kilter screen presence was a fixture on screens for 50 years and more than 200 credits.
"Never daunted by a role, good, bad or ugly. He loved what he did and did what he loved, and one can never ask for more than that," his actor son Kiefer said.
Born in St John, New Brunswick, Canada, in 1935 Donald McNichol Sutherland was the son of a salesman and a mathematics teacher.
Raised in Nova Scotia, his first job was with a local radio station at age 14. He studied engineering and drama at university — where he met the first of his future three wives — before acting won out.
In 1958 he crossed the Atlantic to study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, going on to land roles on stage, screen and in film.
Sutherland’s big break came in 1967 when he landed a role in hit war movie The Dirty Dozen.
Awarded a one-line part in an all-star cast that included Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson and Telly Savalas, his role expanded when Clint Walker declined to do a scene where his character impersonated a general,
"He [director Robert Aldrich] went, ‘You with the big ears, you do it.’ I don’t think he knew my name. But, you know. It changed my life," Sutherland said.
Sutherland set sail for Hollywood and roles in two more war films soon followed — as Hawkeye Pierce in Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H and as a tank commander in Kelly’s Heroes — and Sutherland’s bravura performance in each cemented his reputation as a fine character actor.
Sutherland’s career as a leading man peaked in the 1970s, when he starred in films by the era’s top directors — even if they did not always do their best work with him.
Sutherland, who said as an actor he was at the service of a director’s vision, worked with Federico Fellini (Casanova), Bernardo Bertolucci (1900), Claude Chabrol (Blood Relatives) and John Schlesinger (The Day of the Locust).
He and Douglas divorced in 1971 after having twins in 1966: Rachel and Kiefer, who was named after Warren Kiefer, the writer of Sutherland’s first film, Castle of the Living Dead.
Nicolas Roeg’s psychological horror film Don’t Look Now was another high point. Sutherland’s admiration for the film and Roeg was such that he and his next wife, actress Francine Racette, named their first-born child Roeg.
Sutherland married Racette in 1972 and remained with her. She survives him. They had two other children: Rossif, named after the director Frederic Rossif; and Angus Redford, named after Robert Redford. Sutherland starred in Redford’s 1980 hit Ordinary People, a best picture Oscar winner.
Sutherland won an Emmy in 1995 for the TV film Citizen X, as well as two Golden Globes, but never received an Oscar nod. The Academy went some way to remedying that oversight by presenting Sutherland with an honorary Oscar in 2017.
"Thank you for putting my name on this. This is very important to me, to my family," Sutherland said in his acceptance speech.
"I wish I could say thank you to all the characters I have played, thank them for using their lives to inform my life."
Sutherland continued to work steadily and increasingly worked in television, with notable appearances in Dirty Sexy Money, Crossing Lines and Trust, in which he leant a sinister air to the role of oil tycoon J Paul Getty.
To a younger generation, Sutherland was most familiar as President Snow in The Hunger Games franchise beginning with the 2012 original. Sutherland sought out the part.
"The role of the president had maybe a line in the script. Maybe two. Didn’t make any difference," Sutherland told GQ.
"I thought it was an incredibly important film, and I wanted to be a part of it."
France made Sutherland a Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2012, and in 2019 his native land honoured him by making him a Companion of the Order of Canada. In 2023, Canada Post issued a stamp in his honour.
Donald Sutherland died on June 20 aged 88. — Agencies.
