Donald Sutherland, the prolific film and television actor whose long career stretched from "MASH" to “The Hunger Games,” has died. He was 88.
Kiefer Sutherland, the actor's son, confirmed his father's death Thursday. Citing Donald Sutherland's talent agency, CAA, the Hollywood trades say he died in Miami after a long illness.
“I personally think one of the most important actors in the history of film,” Kiefer Sutherland said on X. “Never daunted by a role, good, bad or ugly. He loved what he did and did what he loved, and one can never ask for more than that.”
The tall and gaunt Canadian actor with a grin that could be sweet or diabolical was known for offbeat characters like Hawkeye Pierce in Robert Altman's "MASH," the hippie tank commander in "Kelly's Heroes" and the stoned professor in "Animal House."
Before transitioning into a long career as a respected character actor, Sutherland epitomized the unpredictable, antiestablishment cinema of the 1970s .
Over the decades, Sutherland showed his range in more buttoned-down parts. Two of his most acclaimed roles were in movies shot in the Chicago area: a father grieving his son's accidental death in "Ordinary People" (1980) and a chilling arsonist in “Backdraft” (1991).
More, recently, he starred in the “Hunger Games” films and the HBO limited series “The Undoing.” He never retired and worked regularly up until his death.
“I love to work. I passionately love to work,” Sutherland told Charlie Rose in 1998. “I love to feel my hand fit into the glove of some other character. I feel a huge freedom — time stops for me. I’m not as crazy as I used to be, but I’m still a little crazy.”
While never Oscar-nominated, he was presented with an honorary award in 2017 for what the Motion Picture Academy called "a lifetime of indelible characters, rendered with unwavering truthfulness."
