of European auteur cinema in Hollywood, a singular actor with an immense palette

Actor Donald Sutherland at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, California on October 13, 2017.

It could have been a monster – the priapic puppet of Casanova (1976) by Federico Fellini, the fascist and sadistic foreman of the 1900 by Bernardo Bertolucci (1976) – or a broken man who compels empathy – twice he played fathers who see their child die, in Don’t Look Now (Don’t look back, for the title in French), by Nicolas Roeg (1973), and in Ordinary People (People like the others), by Robert Redford (1980). With his drooping eyelids and his endless upper lip, he was also the opposite of a young senior.

However, Donald Sutherland left his mark on late 20th century cinemae century like few actors, working as well with the Frenchman Claude Chabrol as with the American John Landis, distinguishing himself in Hollywood blockbusters (Alert !by Wolfgang Petersen, in 1995, the cycle of Hunger Gamesbetween 2012 and 2015) only in arthouse films (A white and dry season, by Euzhan Palcy, in 1989, The Burnt Orange Heresy, alongside Mick Jagger, in 2019). The Canadian actor died on Thursday, June 20, in Miami (Florida), from complications “from a long illness”, announced on social networks, his son, actor Kiefer Sutherland. He was 88 years old.

Donald Sutherland was born on July 17, 1935 in Saint-John, in the Canadian province of New Brunswick where his father was a merchant. He left the Atlantic coast of Canada for Toronto where he followed a dual course in engineering and acting. This second vocation eventually won out and in 1957. He then left for the United Kingdom where he enrolled at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. As his unique physique predestined him, he made his debut in genre cinema, shooting horror films for the British company Hammer and appearing in a few television series.

In 1967, Sutherland landed his first major role, in The Twelve Bastards, by Robert Aldrich, alongside Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin. The enormous success of the film encouraged him to leave for Hollywood where he landed a role in a military comedy, Gold for the brave (1970), by Brian G. Hutton, with Clint Eastwood and Telly Savalas. During filming in Yugoslavia, he contracted meningitis which plunged him into a coma.

Next comes a film the polar opposite of Aldrich’s bellicose orgy: MASH, by Robert Altman (1970). In the role of military surgeon Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce who tries, through humor and compassion, to survive the Korean War, the actor radiates a warmth and power of seduction that were unexpected at the time. His role will then be taken over by Alan Alda in the television series inspired by the film.

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