Donald Sutherland dead at 88, Kiefer pays tribute: 'A life well lived'

Hollywood legend Donald Sutherland has died at 88.

“With a heavy heart, I tell you that my father, Donald Sutherland, has passed away,” Kiefer Sutherland announced on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday.

“I personally think one of the most important actors in the history of film. 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. A life well lived.”

The award-winning actor starred in a slew of hit movies such as “The Hunger Games,” “The Dirty Dozen,” “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” “Ordinary People,” “M*A*S*H,” “Don’t Look Now,” “Klute” and “Animal House.”

According to Deadline, he died on Thursday in Miami after a long illness.

Sutherland was never nominated for an Oscar, but he got an Honorary Oscar in 2017. During his acceptance speech, he said, “I wish I could say thank you to all the characters I’ve played. Thank them for using their lives to inform my lives.”

A father of five, he was married from 1959 to 1966 to Lois Hardwick, from 1966 to 1970 to Shirley Douglas — with whom he had Kiefer and Rachel — and from 1972 until his death to actress Francine Racette, with whom he had sons Rossif, Angus Redford, and Roeg.

Born on July 17, 1935, in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, Donald Sutherland had a career spanning over 60 years, with more than 200 film and TV credits.

He rose to stardom with 1970’s “M*A*S*H,” playing the martini-drinking Hawkeye.

In a 1970 interview for the CBC program “Telescope,” he said about his character in the movie, “When you are in a field station like we were, it is insane to watch human bodies come flying into a camp that are wrecked for no reason at all. That kind of insanity created an environment, a kind of mini-society, that was in chaos. To a lot of people, that represents a kind of society that we have today.”

Sutherland survived serious illness as a child. In a 2011 interview with Esquire, Sutherland said, “The first word I said was neck. My mother turned around and said, “What did he say?” My sister said, “He said, ‘Neck.’ ” My neck was killing me. That was a sign of polio. One leg’s a little shorter, but I survived.”

In a 2018 interview on “60 Minutes,” Sutherland opened up about his childhood insecurities.

“I went to her and I said: “Mother, am I good looking?” And my mother looked at me and went, ‘Your face has character, Donald.’ And I went and hid in my room for at least a day,” he recalled.

When Anderson Cooper asked if his mother’s words stayed with him, Sutherland quipped, “Not really. Just — just for — 65, 66 years.”

In the 1978 comedy classic “Animal House,” Sutherland played a college professor who smokes pot with students and has an affair with one. He was reportedly given a choice between taking a fee of either 2% of the film’s gross or $35,000, and opted for the latter. However, the film went on to become one of the most successful comedies of all time, grossing over $500 million to date.

About filming that movie, he told Esquire, “My ass was in ‘Animal House.’ John Landis said he filmed it only for the rushes. He promised my wife that he wouldn’t put it in the film. But he did put it in the film — and my wife never spoke to him again.”

His 1973 movie “Don’t Look Now” was also controversial for an infamously risqué scene.

Sutherland won a Golden Globe for the television movie “Path to War” and an Emmy and a Golden Globe for the miniseries “Citizen X.” His extensive television credits also include “Trust,” “Dirty Sexy Money” and “The Pillars of the Earth.”

In a 2020 interview with Hugh Grant for Interview Magazine, Sutherland said, “I’m nervous all the time. For me, the camera’s either a voyeur or a lover. If it’s your lover, it shares your soul, you give it your virginity over and over again, and it’ll embrace your heart. If it’s a voyeur, it’s a f – – king paparazzi.”

He also said he used to change scripts.

“Every once in a while, my characters take off in the middle of the film. They don’t say what they’re supposed to say, they lead me around by the nose,” he said.

He added, “I change the text on every film. I write it down in Final Draft, send a copy of it to the writer, they approve it, and then we send it to the director. I don’t interfere with anybody else’s lines, but I try to make the lines that I’ve been given fit my mouth. I don’t change the intent of the scene, just the words in my mouth.”

Late in life, he had a career resurgence playing the tyrannical President Snow in the “Hunger Games” movies, which came out between 2012 and 2015 and are ongoing, with a 2023 prequel and another prequel forthcoming.

Sutherland told GQ in 2014 that he sought out the role.

“Nobody asked me to do it. I wasn’t offered it. I like to read scripts, and it captured my passion. I wrote them a letter. The role of the president had maybe a line in the script. Maybe two. Didn’t make any difference. I thought it was an incredibly important film, and I wanted to be a part of it,” he said.

He added, “I thought it could wake up an electorate that had been dormant since the ’70s. I hadn’t read the books. To be truthful, I was unaware of them. But they showed my letter to the director, Gary Ross, and he thought it’d be a good idea if I did it.”

When Anderson Cooper asked him about finding inspiration during his “60 Minutes” interview, Sutherland said, “I don’t find it. It finds me. I mean, I will read it. And suddenly, it starts churning around inside me. And, then, it gets violent. And, then, it gets loving. And it’s an extraordinary thing. It gets more and more and more exciting. It’s delicious.”