A hard-working actor who popped up in roles small and large in a great many movies, particularly during the 1970s. Tall and gaunt, Donald Sutherland is hardly the leading man type; yet, his relatively plain features have kept him from being typecast, and he has played leads in a number of important movies, showing a depth of talent and sensitivity. Born and raised in Canada, Donald Sutherland's first brush with show business came when he worked as a D.J. for a Nova Scotia radio station at age 14. He began to act while attending the University of Toronto and continued to learn his craft at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
After a short, modest stage career in England, he made his film debut in an Italian horror movie, Castle of the Living Dead (1964). He soon began to appear frequently in supporting roles in U.S. and British co-productions of varying quality, the best of these being The Bedford Incident (1965) and The Dirty Dozen (1967).
His big break came when he costarred with Elliott Gould in ROBERT ALTMAN's surprise hit of 1969, M*A*S*H. Donald Sutherland played the character Hawkeye Pierce, who was later portrayed in the M*A*S*H TV series by Alan Alda. Donald Sutherland's popularity soared, and he began to star regularly in an interesting mix of quirky productions (e.g., Alex in Wonderland, 1970, and Little Murders, 1971) and mainstream films (e.g., Kelly's Heroes, 1970 and Klute, 1971).
After working with JANE FONDA in Klute, Donald Sutherland joined her in the antiwar movement, protesting American involvement in Vietnam through such films as F.T.A. (1972), in which he not only appeared but also coproduced, codirected, and coscripted.
After a number of box-office failures, he tried, without success, to recreate the magic of M*A*S*H with S*P*Y*S (1974). His career continued to unravel slowly during the rest of the 1970s from a combination of overexposure (he made cameo appearances in a seemingly endless round of movies that featured him heavily in their promotion) and starring roles in poor, low-budget Canadian movies that received little distribution in the United States.
He was kept afloat during the mid-1970s, thanks to three films that greatly enhanced his reputation, the critically acclaimed Day of the Locust (1975), Bernardo Bertolucci's 1900 (1976), and in the title role of Federico Fellini's film, Casanova (1976). Unfortunately, Donald Sutherland had only one bona-fide commercial hit in the decade after Klute - Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978).
Donald Sutherland began the 1980s by giving what many consider the best performance of his career as the father in the ROBERT REDFORD-directed Oscar-winning Ordinary People (1980). Donald Sutherland went on to score another hit with the thriller Eye of the Needle (1981), but he has had few hits since and has been seen mostly in supporting roles in such mainstream films as Max Dugan Returns (1983) and Lock Up (1989) and leads in low-budget affairs such as Wolf at the Door (1987) and Lost Angels (1989).
Like Jon Voight, Donald Sutherland began playing villains in his later career, beginning with Phil Kaufman's remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1987). His skills as a character actor kept him constantly employed in films great and small. In A Dry White Season (1989) Donald Sutherland played the lead, a white Afrikaner confronting apartheid in South Africa. He also played the lead in Eminent Domain (1991), a Kafkaesque political film made in Poland about a man stripped of his power for no apparent reason. He held his own against ROBERT DE NIRO and Kurt Russell in Backdraft (1991). That year he also had a bit part as the unknown general in OLIVER STONE's JFK.
In a more popular vein, it was Donald Sutherland who in 1992 gave Buffy her destiny in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, attaching Sutherland to what was to become a cult phenomenon, just as he had been associated earlier with another film that was to achieve cult status as a TV show, M*A*S*H. In another effective character role, Donald Sutherland played MICHAEL DOUGLAS's employer in Disclosure (1994), as DEMI MOORE attempted to destroy Douglas to further her own career.
More impressively, Donald Sutherland played an art dealer hustled by WILL SMITH in Six Degrees of Separation (1993), adapted from the play by John Guare, who also wrote the screenplay. This was, arguably, his best role of the decade. On television in 1995 Donald Sutherland played a Russian colonel who helps to bring a serial killer to justice in Citizen X. In 1996 he played the mentor to Matthew McConaughey's defense attorney in the film adaptation of John Grisham's A Time to Kill. Less impressively, in The Shadow Conspiracy (1996) Donald Sutherland played the president's chief of staff.
In The Assignment (1997) he played a CIA counter-terrorism expert tracking down Carlos the Jackal. Most impressive that year was Donald Sutherland's performance in Without Limits (1997), considered his first three-dimensional role in years, and rewarded with a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Later, Donald Sutherland was launched into Outer Space with CLINT EASTWOOD in Space Cowboys (2000), a summer blockbuster that earned over $90 million. An accomplished and talented veteran actor, Donald Donald Sutherland has appeared in several foreign films and many television films, in which he usually has the lead role. He has worked for such directors as Federico Fellini and Clint Eastwood.
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