Celebrated film actor Donald Sutherland has died at the age of 88 after a prolonged illness. Younger audiences know him as Coriolanus Snow, the authoritarian ruler in the Hunger Games film adaptations, but his career spanned six decades.
It is sometimes said that there are no more movie stars, but Sutherland was definitely one of them.
His son, the actor Kiefer Sutherland, announced the news on Twitter/X:
More from Variety:
Donald Sutherland, Star of ‘MASH,’ ‘Klute’ and ‘Hunger Games,’ Dies at 88Donald Sutherland, the tall, lean and long-faced Canadian actor who became a countercultural icon with such films as “The Dirty Dozen,” “MASH,” “Klute” and “Don’t Look Now,” and who subsequently enjoyed a prolific and wide-ranging career in films including “Ordinary People,” “Without Limits” and the “Hunger Games” films, died Thursday in Miami after a long illness, CAA confirmed. He was 88.For over a half century, the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actor, who received an honorary Oscar in 2017, memorably played villains, antiheroes, romantic leads and mentor figures. His profile increased in the past decade with his supporting role as the evil President Snow in “The Hunger Games” franchise…After what Sutherland called “a meandering little career,” including roles in low-budget horror pics like 1963’s “Castle of the Living Dead” and 1965’s “Die! Die! My Darling!,” he landed a part as one of the bottom six in 1967’s “The Dirty Dozen.”Sutherland told the Guardian in 2005 that he originally had one line in the film, until Clint Walker refused to play a scene requiring him to impersonate a general. According to Sutherland, director Robert Aldrich, who didn’t know his name, suddenly turned to him and said, “You! With the big ears! You do it!”
With such a long career, many people will have a favorite Sutherland role. For me, it is his portrayal of the pot-smoking Professor Jennings in National Lampoon’s Animal House in 1978.
Also in 1978, Sutherland played a public health official in a remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers alongside Leonard Nimoy and a young Jeff Goldblum.
He was also excellent in the mysterious role of ‘X’ in the 1991 Oliver Stone film JFK.
Here’s a short retrospective from Entertainment Tonight.
Rest in peace, sir. Thank you for the movies.
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