15.The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism
Christopher Lee, Donald Sutherland
Released: 1967
Directed by: Harald Reinl
14.Klute
Sylvester Stallone, Jane Fonda
Released: 1971
Directed by: Alan J. Pakula
13.The Italian Job
Charlize Theron, Kelly Brook
Released: 2003
Directed by: F. Gary Gray
12.The Eagle Has Landed
Robert Duvall, Michael Caine
Released: 1976
Directed by: John Sturges
11.Ordeal by Innocence
Faye Dunaway, Donald Sutherland
Released: 1985
Directed by: Desmond Davis
10.Eye of the Needle
Donald Sutherland, Bill Nighy
Released: 1981
Directed by: Richard Marquand
9.Uprising
Jon Voight, Hank Azaria
Released: 2001
Directed by: Jon Avnet
8.Cold Mountain
Natalie Portman, Nicole Kidman
Released: 2003
Directed by: Anthony Minghella
7.The Dirty Dozen
Jim Brown, Donald Sutherland
Released: 1967
Directed by: Robert Aldrich
6.A Time to Kill
Sandra Bullock, Matthew McConaughey
Released: 1996
Directed by: Joel Schumacher
5.JFK
Kevin Costner, Gary Oldman
Released: 1991
Directed by: Oliver Stone
4.Bear Island
Christopher Lee, Donald Sutherland
Released: 1979
Directed by: Don Sharp
3.MASH
Robert Duvall, Donald Sutherland
Released: 1970
Directed by: Robert Altman
2.Space Cowboys
Clint Eastwood, Jon Hamm
Released: 2000
Directed by: Clint Eastwood
1.Kelly’s Heroes
Clint Eastwood, Donald Sutherland
Released: 1970
Directed by: Brian G. Hutton
Widely considered one of Canada’s best-known film actors, Donald McNichol Sutherland was born on July 17, 1935, in Saint John, New Brunswick. His parents, Dorothy, a math teacher, and Frederick, who worked in sales and managed the local utility company, forged a standard middle-class home for their son. Sutherland would later describe his father as a self-involved, controlling man while his mother was a direct, loving presence in the youngster’s life.
Sutherland’s early childhood was shaped by poor health. The first word he learned to say was “neck” because that’s where he was in pain, a sign that the young boy was weathering the early onset of polio. Today, one leg is shorter than the other as a result of the illness. Sutherland also dealt with bouts of hepatitis and rheumatic fever.
Resisting their son’s dreams of becoming a sculptor, Sutherland’s parents urged conventionality and successfully pushed him to study engineering at the University of Toronto, where Sutherland experienced his first exposure to acting. As the story goes, the first play Sutherland ever saw was one he had a small role in: a student production of Edward Albee’s The Male Animal during his junior year. Other shows followed, and in 1958 Sutherland graduated with dual degrees in engineering and drama.
While at the University of Toronto, Sutherland also met his first wife, Lois Hardwick, an experienced actress who’d been a child star during the silent film era. The couple married in 1959, the first of Sutherland’s three marriages, and divorced seven years later without any children.
Scrapping a potential engineering career, Sutherland moved to the United Kingdom after college to work at the Perth Repertory Theater in Scotland. He also appeared on the London stage before embarking on his half-century film career. It was an inauspicious start.
“My first offer ever for a film was in 1962,” Sutherland said to GQ magazine. “I auditioned for the producer, the writer, the director. And I came home and said to my first wife, ‘I thought it went okay.’ You never want to say you did well before you know anything. The next morning they were all on the phone saying how wonderful the audition had been. And then the producer said, ‘We loved you so much, we wanted to explain why we weren’t casting you. We’ve always thought of this as a guy-next-door sort of character, and we don’t think you look like you’ve ever lived next door to anybody.’”
A year later he did get a part in the 1963 British romantic drama The World Ten Times Over. But it didn’t lead to steady or even good paying work. Thus, on the advice of his agent, a flat broke Sutherland moved to Hollywood in the mid-1960s. His big break came in 1967 when he landed the small but significant role of Vernon Pinkley in the war film The Dirty Dozen, starring Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown and Telly Savalas, among others. The movie went on to become the fifth highest-grossing film of the year. Leveraging that success, Sutherland found more work, including a part in the Clint Eastwood comedy Kelly’s Heroes (1970).
Biogrpahy.
BY Movies