Esteemed Actor Donald Sutherland Dies at 88

Donald Sutherland, the prolific film and television actor whose long career stretched from M*A*S*H to The Hunger Games, has died. He was 88.​​

Kiefer Sutherland, the actor’s son, confirmed his father’s death Thursday. No further details were immediately available.​​

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Kiefer called his father “one of the most important actors in the history of film” in a tribute on X. “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.”​​

(Left to right) Donald Sutherland and Jane Fonda in "Klute."

Everett Collection

The tall and gaunt Canadian actor with a grin that could be sweet or diabolical was known for offbeat characters including Hawkeye Pierce in Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H, a proto-hippie tank commander in Kelly’s Heroes and a stoned professor in Animal House.​

Before transitioning into a respected character actor, Sutherland epitomized the unpredictable, antiestablishment cinema of the 1970s. Over the decades, Sutherland showed his range in more buttoned-down — but still eccentric — parts in Robert Redford’s Ordinary People and Oliver Stone’s JFK. More recently, he starred in The Hunger Games films and the HBO limited series The Undoing. He never retired and worked regularly up until his death. “I love to work. I passionately love to work,” Sutherland told Charlie Rose in 1998. “I love to feel my hand fit into the glove of some other character. I feel a huge freedom — time stops for me. I’m not as crazy as I used to be, but I’m still a little crazy.”

He received an honorary Oscar in 2017.