Biography:

Donald McNichol Sutherland CC (17 July 1935 – 20 June 2024) was a Canadian actor. With a career spanning six decades,[1] Sutherland received numerous accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award and two Golden Globe Awards as well as a BAFTA Award nomination. He is considered one of the best actors never nominated for an Academy Award. He was given the Academy Honorary Award in 2017.

Sutherland rose to fame after starring in films such as The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), and Kelly’s Heroes (1970). He subsequently starred in many films both in leading and supporting roles, including Klute (1971), Don’t Look Now (1973), The Day of the Locust (1975), Fellini’s Casanova (1976), 1900 (1976), Animal House (1978), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Ordinary People (1980), Eye of the Needle (1981), A Dry White Season (1989), Backdraft (1991), JFK (1991), Six Degrees of Separation (1993), Without Limits (1998), Space Cowboys (2000), The Italian Job (2003), and Pride & Prejudice (2005). Sutherland also portrayed President Snow in The Hunger Games franchise (2012–2015).

On television, he starred in the HBO film Citizen X (1995) earned him the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie. For his portrayal of Clark Clifford in the HBO film Path to War (2002) he earned the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film. He also acted in Uprising (2001), Human Trafficking (2005), Trust (2018), and The Undoing (2020).

Sutherland was made an Officer of the Order of Canada (OC) in 1978 and was inducted into the Canadian Walk of Fame in 2000 and the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2011. He is the father of Kiefer, Rossif, and Angus Sutherland, all actors.

Early life and education

Donald McNichol Sutherland was born on 17 July 1935 at the Saint John General Hospital in Saint John, New Brunswick,[2][3] 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.[4] He was of Scottish, German, and English ancestry.[5] His grandfather was a Scots church minister.[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,[2] 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] At the age of 19, Sutherland spent four months as an exchange student in Finland, where he lived near an iron mine located in Otanmäki, Kainuu.[10][11]

Sutherland graduated from Bridgewater High School.[12] He then began studying at the University of Toronto before transferring to its affiliate college, Victoria University,[13] where he met his first wife Lois May Hardwick.[14] He graduated in 1958,[13] with a dual degree in engineering and drama.[15] He had at one point been a member of the “UC Follies” comedy troupe in Toronto. He changed his mind about becoming an engineer, and left Canada for Britain in 1957,[16] studying at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA).[17]

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