Donald Sutherland

July 17, 2012

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On this date in 1935, the great actor Donald McNichol Sutherland was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. Sutherland double majored in engineering and drama at the University of Toronto. After graduating in 1958, he studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and acted for British television and film. Some of his earlier films include “The Dirty Dozen” (1967), Robert Altman’s “MASH” (1970), “Kelly’s Heroes” (1970), “Klute” (1971), “Don’t Look Now” (1973), “The Eagle Has Landed” (1976), “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1978), “1900” (1976) and “Ordinary People” (1980). He acted with Marlon Brando and Susan Sarandon in “A Dry White Season” (1989), about South African apartheid. Some of his more recent work includes “A Time to Kill” (1997), which co-starred his son Kiefer Sutherland, “Space Cowboys” (2000), “Cold Mountain” (2003), “Pride and Prejudice” (2005) and “The Hunger Games” (2012). The prolific actor has over 160 film and television roles in his repertoire. He has been nominated for numerous major awards and won two Golden Globes (in 1996 Best Supporting Actor in a Made for TV Motion Picture for “Citizen X” and in 2002 in the same category for “Path to War”). He is married (since 1990) to Francine Racette, with whom he has three children. He is the father of actor Kiefer Sutherland and Kiefer's twin sister, from a previous marriage. Sutherland resides in California.

James Lipton: If heaven exists, what would you like to hear god say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

Sutherland: Oh, you know something, I'm so far away from believing that it exists, and the only thing I know are jokes about it.

— Donald Sutherland in an interview with James Lipton on “Inside the Actor’s Studio,” 1998

Compiled by Bonnie Gutsch (Freedom From Religion Foundation)