Donald Sutherland Dies at 88

Donald Sutherland, the Canadian actor who became a countercultural icon in the ‘70s, died Thursday in Miami after a long illness. He was 88.

“With a heavy heart, I tell you that my father, Donald Sutherland, has passed away,” Kiefer Sutherland, Donald Sutherland’s son, wrote in a post on Instagram Thursday. “I personally think one of the most important actors in the history of film. Never daunted by a role, good, bad or ugly.”

Kiefer continued to write that his father “loved what he did and did what he loved, and one can never ask for more than that. A life well lived.”

Tall and intensely guarded, Sutherland’s acting spanned nearly 60 years, earning him Emmy and Golden Globe wins. He did it all: villains, antiheroes, romantic leads. He was also well-known to younger moviegoers as President Snow in “The Hunger Games” franchise.

His run of films from 1967-1980 is legendary: “The Dirty Dozen,” “MASH,” “Little Murders,” “Klute,” “Don’t Look Now,” “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” “1900” and “Ordinary People.” His other memorable roles were in “JFK,” “A Dry White Season, “Day of the Locust,” and “Six Degrees of Separation

The great filmmaker Robert Altman once recalled Sutherland this way, “His improvisation was profound […] He’s a hell of an actor.” He wasn’t wrong. Sutherland was also self-effacing. For a movie star he was as low key as possible, staying out of the spotlight when he wasn’t on screen.

His wisecracking doctor Hawkeye Pierce in Altman’s Palme d’Or winning “MASH,” a politically incorrect film that unfairly gets castigated today, was sheer delight. Sutherland had one of the great faces in cinema —long-ish chin with piercing eyes. Not too handsome, but oddly absorbing. When Fellini cast him in his “Casanova” he said he wanted Sutherland because the actor was “a sperm-filled waxwork with the eyes of a masturbator.”

The one role I’ll always remember Sutherland by is his turn in Nicholas Roeg’s 1973 psychological-horror film “Don’t Look Now,” Alongside Julie Christie, he portrayed a grief-stricken husband who fled from England to Venice after the death of their little girl. The film is also known to have one of the raciest sex scenes ever put on film, but it’s Sutherland’s manically haunted performance, filled with total sadness, that towers above all.

It’s hard to do justice to his legacy in a single writeup. Sutherland was widely considered to be the greatest living actor to have never been nominated for an Oscar, which is hard to imagine when you look at his filmography. Still, he received an honorary Oscar in 2017.