The Golden Age of Hollywood turned out some great actors and actresses.
But those days are long gone, and very few of the great stars of yesteryear are still with us.
And Hollywood just lost another legend as this iconic Oscar-winning actor passes away at age 88.
A true Hollywood legend
Donald Sutherland, the tall, lanky Canadian-born actor who became a Hollywood icon and fan favorite, died last Thursday in Miami after a long illness at the age of 88.
Sutherland had a span of more than 50 years in Hollywood and starred in such films as Kelly’s Heroes, The Dirty Dozen, MASH, Klute, and Don’t Look Now.
Unlike many leading men, Sutherland was able to successfully play a wide range of characters.
He was equally as good playing comic roles as he was evil villains.
This allowed him to enjoy a prolific and wide-ranging career in films like Ordinary People, Without Limits, and the Hunger Games.
For more than half a century, Sutherland memorably played villains, antiheroes, romantic leads, mentor figures, and counterculture heroes.
Sutherland’s profile saw a resurgence over the past decade with his supporting role as the evil President Snow in The Hunger Games franchise.
Sutherland’s ability to play almost any role won him Emmys and Golden Globes and an honorary Oscar in 2017.
Most recently, Sutherland appeared as Judge Parker on the hit Paramount series Lawmen: Bass Reeves and in the Swimming With Sharks series in 2022.
He also appeared in recurring roles in the series Undoing and Trust, in which he played J. Paul Getty, and the features Ad Astra and The Burnt-Orange Heresy.
A “meandering little career”
After what Sutherland himself called “a meandering little career,” he landed what was supposed to be a bit part in 1967’s The Dirty Dozen.
Sutherland told the Guardian in 2005 that he originally only had one line in the film until Clint Walker refused to play a scene requiring him to impersonate a general.
According to Sutherland, Director Robert Aldrich, who didn’t even know his name, suddenly turned to him and said, “You! With the big ears! You do it!”
The smart-alecky role was a perfect fit for Sutherland and the classic scene caught the attention of producer Ingo Preminger, who cast him as the anti-authoritarian surgeon Captain “Hawkeye” Pierce in 1970’s massive hit MASH.
MASH turned Sutherland, and co-star Elliott Gould, who played Captain “Trapper” John, into major stars.
Sutherland also teamed up with Gould in 1971’s black comedy Little Murders and again in the 1974 movie SPYS.
In the 1970 WWII action flick Kelly’s Heroes, Sutherland joined Clint Eastwood, portraying Sgt. Oddball, a scene-stealing hippie tank commander.
Sutherland would team up with Eastwood again in 2000’s Space Cowboys, this time playing a former hotshot pilot.
In 1971’s Klute, co-starring with Jane Fonda, Sutherland emerged as a romantic leading man.
He played a troubled detective who falls in love with a call girl (Fonda) whom he was protecting from a sadistic killer.
Fonda gave Sutherland credit for her Oscar-winning best actress performance, because of “all the intense feelings I was experiencing” with him.
The two were having an affair at the time.
A memorable, and controversial, sex scene
In the 1973 psychological horror film Don’t Look Now, Sutherland starred with Julie Christie.
They played a grieving married couple who fled England to Venice after the death of their daughter.
The film became controversial for an explicit sex scene between them.
Even in today’s era of over-sexualization, the scene remains one of the most memorable sex scenes ever filmed.
At the height of his success, Sutherland began to make some strange career choices.
He turned down a leading role in the hit Deliverance and chose to star in Alex in Wonderland (1970) instead of Sam Peckinpah’s classic Straw Dogs.
He then acted with Fonda again in Steelyard Blues (1973) and played Jesus Christ in Johnny Got His Gun (1971).
Both films were box office flops.
He rebounded with a memorable cameo in the 1978 hit National Lampoon’s Animal House, playing a professor, who is discovered having an affair with a student (Karen Allen).
But he took a small upfront fee for his work instead of an offered percentage of the profits.
Sutherland estimated that choice cost him at least $14 million.
Sutherland came back with 1980’s Ordinary People, playing the grieving father trying to hold his family together after his older son’s accidental death.
Remarkably, Sutherland was never even nominated for an Oscar but did win a lifetime achievement Oscar in 2017.
Other noteworthy roles include President Snow in The Hunger Games (2012) and its sequels: a safecracker in The Italian Job (2003) and the lead in Philip Kaufman’s 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Sutherland also appeared with son Kiefer in 1996’s A Time to Kill, but turned down an offer to play the father of Kiefer’s character, Jack Bauer, in 24.
The father and son duo appeared together in the 2014 Western Forsaken.
