Donald Sutherland, eclectic Canadian actor best known for his role in The Twelve Bastards (1967) or his role as dictator in the saga Hunger Gamesdied at the age of 88, his son Kiefer Sutherland announced on Thursday June 20. “It is with a heavy heart that I announce the death of my father”, wrote on the social network the British-Canadian, also an actor, greeting “one of the most important actors in the history of cinema”.
“He was never intimidated by a role, whether good, bad or uglyadded his son. He loved what he did and did what he loved, and you couldn’t ask for anything more. A life well lived. » According to several American media, he died following a long illness. Contacted by Agence France-Presse, its agents did not immediately respond.
In more than sixty years of career and some 200 films, Donald Sutherland has established himself as a chameleon actor, capable of embodying great cinema villains, antiheroes or romantic characters. Crowned with two Golden Globes and an Emmy Award for television roles, he received an honorary Oscar for his entire career in 2017.
After starring in cult British series like Bowler hat and leather bootsDonald Sutherland had obtained his first major role in 1967 in The Twelve Bastards, with Charles Bronson. His slender silhouette, his absent air and his enigmatic smiles ensure his charisma and singularity.
Counter-culture
Other hits include the anti-militarist farce MASH (1970) and the thriller Klute (1971) where he plays a private detective in search of a perverse killer who threatens a call girl played by Jane Fonda. For a time he shared the life of the actress, with whom he led several actions against the Vietnam War and filmed the pacifist documentary FTA (1972). He thus became an icon of the counterculture, which led to him being monitored by the FBI.
Prolific, the actor stands out for his ability to play everything. He can don the costume of a fascist brute in 1900 (1976), by Bernardo Bertolucci, play a seducer with disturbing sensuality in the Casanova by Federico Fellini in 1977, or slip into the shoes of a mysterious Pentagon official in the JFK, by Oliver Stone, in 1992.
It was “one of the smartest, most interesting and most captivating actors of all time”, greeted on X director Ron Howard, who directed him in Backdraft (1991). The filmmaker praised “his incredible palette, his creative courage and his desire to put himself at the service of the script and the audience with supreme excellence. » “He was a man of strong presence, brilliant in his craft, and truly, truly, a great Canadian artist, and he will be greatly missed”, reacted Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Age allowed him to play new roles such as that of a 19th century English bourgeois patriarch.e In Pride and Prejudice (2005), the adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel, or that of an aging astronaut addicted to flirting in Space Cowboys, by Clint Eastwood, in 2000.
From 2012, he stands out among younger generations as President Coriolanus Snow, cruel dictator and tormentor of Jennifer Lawrence in the saga Hunger Games. ” To get oldhe confided to the magazine Esquire, It’s like having a new job but one you wouldn’t have chosen. » In 2015, he was honored with a star on the famous Hollywood Boulevard.
Donald Sutherland had five children, three of them with Quebec actress Francine Racette, his third wife since 1972. He is notably the father of Kiefer Sutherland, the Jack Bauer of the spy series 24 hours flat.