Sutherland (third from the right) at the Victoria School, 1948
Donald McNichol Sutherland was born on 17 July 1935 at the Saint John General Hospital in Saint John, New Brunswick,[3][4] the son of Dorothy Isobel (née McNichol; 1892–1956) and Frederick McLea Sutherland (1894–1983), who worked in sales and ran the local gas, electricity, and bus company.[5] He was of Scottish, German, and English ancestry.[6] As a child, he had rheumatic fever, hepatitis, and polio.[7] During the first six years of his life, Sutherland and his family lived on present-day Kennebecasis River Road in Hampton, a town in Kings County, having moved there from Saint John while he was an infant. He first received education at a one-room schoolhouse in Hampton; Sutherland's family moved back to Saint John when he was six, his father having secured a position in the New Brunswick Power Company as its vice president and general manager. Sutherland attended the Victoria School in Saint John, and later played hockey for the school. During this time, Sutherland also practiced puppetry.[8] In a letter Sutherland sent to a Saint John Free Public Library representative in 2017, he detailed how he and his family had lived in a farmhouse in Lakeside, located in present-day Hampton, before moving to Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, at the age of 12,[3] where he spent his teenage years.[7] He obtained his first part-time job, at the age of 14, as a news correspondent for local radio station CKBW.[9]
onald_Sutherland_The_Dirty_Dozen_Portrait_Vintage_Studio_8x10_BW_Negative_1967_eBay.png" class="mw-file-description" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: var(--color-progressive,#36c); background: none; border-radius: 2px; display: block; position: relative; border: 0px;">Sutherland as Vernon L. Pinkley on The Dirty Dozen, 1967
In 1967, he appeared in "The Superlative Seven", an episode of The Avengers.[26] In 1966 he also made a second, and more substantial appearance in The Saint (S5,E14). The episode, "Escape Route", which was directed by the show's star, Roger Moore, who later recalled Sutherland "asked me if he could show it to some producers as he was up for an important role... they came to view a rough cut and he got The Dirty Dozen."[27] The film, which starred Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, and several other popular actors, was the fifth highest-grossing film of 1967 and MGM's highest-grossing film of the year.[28] In 1968, after the breakthrough in the UK-filmed The Dirty Dozen, Sutherland left London for Hollywood.[14]
Sutherland then appeared in two war films, playing the lead role as "Hawkeye" Pierce in Robert Altman's MASH in 1970;[29] and, again in 1970, as hippie tank commander "Oddball" in Kelly's Heroes. His health was threatened by spinal meningitis contracted during the filming of the latter film.[30][31] Sutherland starred with Gene Wilder in the 1970 comedy Start the Revolution Without Me.[32] During the filming of the Academy Award-winning detective thriller Klute (1971), Sutherland had an intimate relationship with co-star Jane Fonda.[33][34] Sutherland and Fonda went on to co-produce and star together in the anti–Vietnam War documentary F.T.A. (1972), consisting of a series of sketches performed outside army bases in the Pacific Rim and interviews with U.S. troops who were then on active service. As a follow-up to their appearance in Klute, Sutherland and Fonda performed together in Steelyard Blues (1973), a "freewheeling, Age-of-Aquarius, romp-and-roll caper" from the writer David S. Ward.[35]
onald_Sutherland_-_Monte-Carlo_Television_Festival.jpg" class="mw-file-description" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: var(--color-progressive,#36c); background: none; border-radius: 2px; display: block; position: relative; border: 0px;">Sutherland at the 2013 Monte-Carlo Television Festival
On 26 March 2012, he was a guest on the Opie and Anthony radio show where he mentioned he had been offered the lead roles in Deliverance and Straw Dogs, although turned down both offers because he did not want to appear in violent films at the time.[84][85] The role in Deliverance went to Jon Voight and the role in Straw Dogs to Dustin Hoffman, and both films enjoyed critical and box office success.[84][85] After declining these violent roles, he quipped: "And then I played a fascist in 1900 by Bernardo Bertolucci."[86] Sutherland appeared in the European police procedural Crossing Lines, which premiered on 23 June 2013, on the US NBC network.[87] Sutherland, who played the Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court named Michel Dorn, was one of only two actors to appear in all episodes across three seasons.[87]
In 2016, he was a member of the main competition jury of the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.[88] On 6 September 2017, it was announced that Sutherland, along with three other recipients, would receive an Honorary Oscar from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences "for a lifetime of indelible characters, rendered with unwavering truthfulness". This was Sutherland's first Academy Award in his then six decade long film career.[89]
Sutherland was made an Officer of the Order of Canada on 22 December 1978,[94] and was promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada in 2019.[95] He was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame in March 2000.[96][97] He had maintained a residence in Georgeville, a village in Quebec,[98] since 1977. Referred to as his "emotional home," Sutherland occupied this house during the summer. He had additional houses in other places, including Paris, France.[99]
Sutherland married three times. His first marriage, to Lois May Hardwick, a head school teacher,[100] lasted from 1959 to 1966. His second marriage, which lasted from 1966 to 1970, was to Shirley Douglas, daughter of Tommy Douglas, the social democratic former premier of Saskatchewan known as the Father of Medicare in Canada.[101] Sutherland and Douglas had two children, twins Kiefer and Rachel.[102] From 1970 to 1972, he had an affair with Klute co-star Jane Fonda,[103] with whom he had participated in anti-Vietnam war activism.[104]
Sutherland married French Canadian actress Francine Racette in 1972, after meeting her on the set of the Canadian pioneer drama Alien Thunder. They had three sons – Rossif Sutherland, Angus Redford Sutherland, and Roeg Sutherland[101] – all of whom were named after directors Sutherland had worked with. Kiefer (his son with Douglas) is named after American-born director and writer Warren Kiefer, who, under the assumed name of Lorenzo Sabatini,[105] directed Sutherland in his first feature film, the Italian low-budget horror film Il castello dei morti vivi(Castle of the Living Dead);[106][107] Roeg is named after director Nicolas Roeg; Rossif is named after French director Frédéric Rossif; and Angus Redford has his middle name after Robert Redford.[101]
Although he was proud to be Canadian, an officer in the Order of Canada and had no intention of changing his citizenship, Sutherland complained in 2015 that he was not allowed to vote because he was an expatriate for over five years.[114][115] The Supreme Court of Canada allowed expats to vote in national elections in a decision handed down in 2019.[116][117]
Throughout his life, multiple sources have considered Sutherland as being one of the greatest actors to have never been nominated for an Academy Award;[125][126][127] he was given the Academy Honorary Award during the 90th Academy Awards in 2017.[128]
In 2023, Sutherland told The Canadian Press that he had not spent much time reflecting on the legacy of his career, stating "You know, it's over or very nearly over, so I guess I got to get down to thinking about it." Viking Canada is set to publish his memoir, Made Up, But Still True, in November 2024.[129] Following his death, the City of Saint John, his birthplace and childhood residence, opened a condolence book signing to the public.[130]
The long list of Sutherland's roles and accomplishments shows a man who understood emotion well. But it's this marriage of suspicion and empathy, human feeling and the fear of humanity gone wrong, that secured his place in acting history and made him an uncommon kind of star. He didn't disappear into a role, not exactly; he was too distinctive for that. More often, the role disappeared into him, and the result was something unforgettable".
Helen Mirren named Sutherland as "one of the smartest actors I ever worked with. He had a wonderful enquiring brain and a great knowledge of a wide variety of subjects. He combined this great intelligence with a deep sensitivity, and with seriousness about his profession as an actor. This all made him into the legend of film that he became."[132]David Oyelowo, who worked with Sutherland on what became his final performance in Lawmen: Bass Reeves, stated that "Given the iconic status he rightly achieved, having a front row seat to Donald Sutherland's last onscreen performance was both a privilege and clear evidence to me of his deep passion for the craft of acting. The glint in his eye was that of an inquisitive, hungry artist still on the hunt for the truth. Seeing that glint, up close, in the eyes of a legend was something to behold."[133]Jane Fonda, who worked with Sutherland on the 1971 film Klute, wrote: "Donald was a brilliant actor and a complex man who shared quite a few adventures with me, such as the FTA Show, an anti-Vietnam war tour that performed for 60,000 active duty soldiers, sailors, and marines in Hawaii, Okinawa, the Philippines, and Japan in 1971. I am heartbroken."[134] William Baldwin remembered him a tribute.[135]
Sutherland's BBC obituary says that the "late Donald Sutherland cast a literal and figurative shadow over his industry for almost 50 years".[136]The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw wrote that "Sutherland was an utterly unique actor and irreplaceable star" and "was an aristocrat of screen actors".[137]Variety's Owen Gleiberman wrote that "in 1970, Donald Sutherland ... was the coolest movie star on the planet. The moment I saw him in "MASH," I knew he was the person I wanted to be, the same way that I wanted to be Mick Jagger or Steve McQueen".[138] Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated, "He was a man with a strong presence, a brilliance in his craft, and truly a great Canadian artist and he will be deeply missed. My thoughts go out to Kiefer and the entire Sutherland family, as well as all Canadians who are no doubt saddened to learn as I am right now."[139]
唐納蘇德蘭今傳逝世。（美聯社）
基佛蘇德蘭在IG放上父親唐納蘇德蘭（右）和自己的兒時合照，哀悼父親。（翻攝自IG）
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