Profile of Donald Sutherland on Famous Like Me

Donald McNicol Sutherland, OC (born July 17, 1935) is a Canadian film actor perhaps best known for his role in military and horror films in the 1960s and 1970s.

Early Life

Sutherland was born in Saint John, New Brunswick and grew up in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, the grandson of a Protestant minister. Sutherland got his first part time job aged 14 as a news correspondent for his local radio station CKBW Radio in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. He then studied at Victoria College, University of Toronto (where he was expelled from residence for throwing a sink out of the window) eventually graduating with a double major in engineering and drama. He had at one point been a member of "UC Follies" comedy troupe in Toronto. He changed his mind about becoming an engineer and subsequently left Canada for England to study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA).

Acting Career

In the early 1960s he began to get small parts in British film and TV, in the mid 1960s getting notable roles in horror films with Christopher Lee such as Castle of the Living Dead (1964), and Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965). His first great successes came with the three war films The Dirty Dozen in 1967 with Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson, in 1970 as the lead Capt. 'Hawkeye' Pierce in Robert Altman's M*A*S*H and as tank commander Sgt. Oddball in Kelly's Heroes with Clint Eastwood and Telly Savalas. Sutherland formed an intimate friendship with the actress Jane Fonda during the filming of the Academy award winning detective thriller Klute (1971), Sutherland later remarked that they had had a physical relationship on and off screen (to critic Mark Cousins in 2001). Sutherland and Fonda went on to co-produce and star together in the anti Vietnam war film F.T.A. (1972) consisting of a series of sketches performed outside army bases in the Pacific Rim and interviews with the American troops who were then on active service. Sutherland found himself in demand as a leading man throughout the 1970s in films such as the Venice based psychological horror Don't Look Now (1973), the war film The Eagle Has Landed (1976), and as the ever optimistic health inspector in the sci-fi horror Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) alongside Brooke Adams and Jeff Goldblum. He also made acclaimed performances in the 1976 Bernardo Bertolucci Italian fascism epic (318 minute) 1900 and for his role as the torn father in the Academy award winning family drama Ordinary People (1980) alongside Mary Tyler Moore and Timothy Hutton. He played the part of fellow countryman, Canadian Norman Bethune, a physician, humanitarian and hero in China with whom he identified, in two separate biographical films in 1977 and 1990. Through the 1980s and 1990s his films were perhaps less noteworthy than those in the 70s, exceptions being the South African apartheid drama A Dry White Season (1989) alongside Marlon Brando and Susan Sarandon, the fire fighter thriller Backdraft (1991) alongside Kurt Russell and De Niro, and as the snobbish NY art dealer in Six Degrees of Separation (1993) with Stockard Channing and Will Smith. Recently he has been noted for his role as the Reverend Monroe in the civil war drama Cold Mountain (2003), in the re-make of The Italian Job (2003), and in Pride and Prejudice (2005) starring alongside Keira Knightley.

Personal Life

He was married to the actress Shirley Douglas from 1966-1970, daughter of Canadian democratic socialist statesman Tommy Douglas by whom he has a daughter Rachel and a son Kiefer Sutherland, a prominent actor and director, best known for his role in the TV series 24. He was previously married to Lois Hardwick (1959-1966) (divorced), and briefly had a relationship with the actress Jane Fonda during the early 1970s. He met his current wife, the French-Canadian actress Francine Racette on the set of the Canadian pioneer drama Alien Thunder (1974) (she was later to star in the classic war drama Au revoir les enfants (1987). Together they have three sons (all named after directors who they worked with) Roeg b.1974, Rossif b.1978 (appeared in the 2003 film based on the Michael Crichton novel Timeline and the 2005 film Red Doors), and Angus Redford b.1979.

Sutherland was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1978.

Filmography

• Castle of the Living Dead (1964)
• Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965)
• Die! Die! My Darling! (1965)
• The Bedford Incident (1965)
• Promise Her Anything (1966)
• The Dirty Dozen (1967)
• The Sunshine Patriot (1968)
• The Split (1968)
• Interlude (1968)
• Start the Revolution Without Me (1970)
• M*A*S*H (1970)
• Kelly's Heroes (1970)
• Alex in Wonderland (1970)
• Act of the Heart (1970)
• Little Murders (1971)
• Klute (1971)
• Johnny Got His Gun (1971)
• F.T.A. (1972)
• Steelyard Blues (1973)
• Lady Ice (1973)
• Don't Look Now (1973)
• Alien Thunder (1973)
• S*P*Y*S (1974)
• The Day of the Locust (1975)
• End of the Game (1976)
• The Eagle Has Landed (1976)
• Il Casanova di Federico Fellini (1976)
• 1900 (1976)
• Blood Relatives (1977)
• The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977)
• The Disappearance (1977)
• Bethune (1977)
• National Lampoon's Animal House (1978)
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
• Murder by Decree (1979)
• A Man, a Woman and a Bank (1979)
• The Great Train Robbery (1979)
• Bear Island (1979)
• Ordinary People (1980)
• Nothing Personal (1980)
• Threshold (1981)
• Gas (1981)
• Eye of the Needle (1981)
• The Winter of Our Discontent (1983)
• Max Dugan Returns (1983)
• Ordeal by Innocence (1984)
• Crackers (1984)
• Revolution (1985)
• Heaven Help Us (1985)
• The Wolf at the Door (1986)
• The Trouble with Spies (1987)
• The Rosary Murders (1987)
• Apprentice to Murder (1988)
• Lost Angels (1989)
• Lock Up (1989)
• A Dry White Season (1989)
• Buster's Bedroom (1990)
• Bethune: The Making of a Hero (1990)
• Scream of Stone (1991)
• Long Road Home (1991)
• JFK (1991)
• Eminent Domain (1991)
• Backdraft (1991)
• The Railway Station Man (1992)
• Quicksand: No Escape (1992)
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)
• Younger and Younger (1993)
• Six Degrees of Separation (1993)
• Shadow of the Wolf (1993)
• Benefit of the Doubt (1993)
• The Puppet Masters (1994)
• Punch (1994)
• Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All (1994)
• The Lifeforce Experiment (1994)
• Disclosure (1994)
• Outbreak (1995)
• Hollow Point (1995)
• Citizen X (1995)
• A Time to Kill (1996)
• The Assignment (1997)
• Shadow Conspiracy (1997)
• Free Money (1998)
• Fallen (1998)
• Without Limits (1998)
• Behind the Mask (1999)
• Virus (1999)
• Instinct (1999)
• The Hunley (1999)
• Toscano (1999)
• The Setting Sun (1999)
• Panic (2000)
• Space Cowboys (2000)
• The Art of War (2000)
• Threads of Hope (voice) (2000)
• Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (voice) (2001)
• Uprising (TV) (2001)
• Queen Victoria's Empire (TV) (voice) (2001)
• Big Shot's Funeral A Chinese Comedy directed by Xiaogang Feng (2002)
• Path to War (tv) (2002)
• The Italian Job (2003)
• Piazza delle cinque lune (2003)
• Baltic Storm (2003)
• Cold Mountain (2003)
• Salem's Lot (TV) (2004)
• Frankenstein (TV) (2004)
• Aurora Borealis (2004)
• Fierce People (2005)
• Pride and Prejudice (2005)
• American Gun (2005)
• Lord Of War (2005 movie cameo, Face not Seen)
• Commander-in-Chief (TV) (2005)

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