I first met Donald Sutherland on the big screen in 1967. I was in Bijou, Lake Tahoe, watching The Dirty Dozen. Most of the movie was beyond the scope and comprehension of a 13-year-old, as going to the movies was still a big deal, but I remembered his face.
During the late 1970s I became close friends with Donald‘s sister, poet-painter Boschka Layton (née Betty Sutherland) who looked a lot like Donald—those eyes, that wry, wicked sense of humor. Every time I saw Donald on the big screen, I couldn’t help but think of his sister Boschka. They were like peas in a pod. So Donald’s death reverberates on many levels.
Donnie, as Boschka/Betty Sutherland always affectionately called her little half-brother, was someone I heard funny stories about as a child. Donnie was a sickly child (polio, scarlet fever) so to entertain him, Betty and her older brother “Jamie” John, also an invalid who suffered from TB, used to write little swashbuckling plays that they produced. So you might say he was bitten by the acting bug at a tender age.
Kiefer Sutherland wrote, “With a heavy heart, I tell you that my father, Donald Sutherland, has passed away. I personally think one of the most important actors in the history of film. 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.”
Sutherland was familiar to younger audience as President Snow in "The Hunger Games", he sought out the part.
In a GQ interview, he said,"The role of the president had maybe a line in the script. Maybe two. Didn't make any difference, I thought it was an incredibly important film, and I wanted to be a part of it."
In a recent AP interview, Sutherland reflected on dying onscreen, for real.
"I'm really hoping that in some movie I'm doing, I die — but I die, me, Donald — and they're able to use my funeral and the coffin," Sutherland told the AP. "That would be absolutely ideal. I would love that.” AP, Mercury News
A consummate actor to the end. The passing of a legend. A true Celt, he chose his exit on the summer solstice. May the light of a thousand bonfires light his way. Heartfelt condolences to the family. Max Layton, Jess Layton ❤
(When Boschka’ mother died in 1927, she and her older brother John were sent to live with grandparents in Nova Scotia. They rejoined their father in St John, New Brunswick, when Frederick McLea Sutherland married Dorothy Isobel McNichol. At one point, they moved back to Nova Scotia. I think there were 2 more children as well.)
Something I wrote about Boschka who lived in Guerneville and Jenner—Donald barely figures into it but it will give you some background in the milieu he grew up in. Betty/Boschka and her brother John founded an important Canadian avant-garde literary magazine and press. One could claim that she discovered the Canadian poet, Irving Layton, whom she encouraged to write and published in her magazine. She married Irving and had two children. I met the extended family at her memorial in 1984.
Lots of my photos of Boschka Layton at the bottom of the page.
“Donald McNichol Sutherland was born in St. John, a small fishing village in New Brunswick, Canada, on July 17, 1935. The town had only 5,000 residents, he said, and “that was when the train rolled into town.” LA Times
“Donald McNichol Sutherland was born on July 17, 1935, in Saint John, a coastal town in New Brunswick. One of three children of Frederick McLae Sutherland, a salesman, and Dorothy (McNichol) Sutherland, a math teacher, Donald lived his formative years in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. As a boy, he was plagued by ill health, including bouts of hepatitis, rheumatic fever and polio, which left him with one leg shorter than the other.” NY Times
“Donald Sutherland has passed away at the age of 88. Sutherland starred in many movies including The Dirty Dozen, The Hunger Games, and Pride & Prejudice. His son Kiefer wrote, “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.”. ABC
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| Donald Sutherland by Robert Maplethorpe |
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