Donald Sutherland, Hunger Games and Ordinary People Actor, Dies at 88

Donald Sutherland, the longtime actor known for The Hunger Games and more films and television roles, has died. He was 88.

Sutherland died Thursday, June 20 in Miami after a long illness, CAA’s Missy Davy confirmed with PEOPLE. "A private celebration of life will be held by the family," Davy said.

The actor is survived by five children, including his 24 actor son Kiefer, whom he shared with ex-wife actress Shirley Douglas, and five grandchildren. Sutherland, who was also previously married to Lois Hardwick, wed actress Francine Racette in 1972, and shared kids Roeg, Rossif and Angus with her. He is also dad to daughter Rachel with Douglas, who died in 2020 at 86.

Sutherland played Mr. Bennet in 2005's Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightley and Hawkeye Pierce in 1970's M*A*S*H, and he had countless notable film roles in movies like Ordinary People (1980) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), plus as the villainous President Snow in all four Hunger Games movies with Jennifer Lawrence.

His recent roles include on television series like The Undoing, Trust and Swimming with Sharks.

Sutherland, who won an Emmy for the 1995 TV movie Citizen X, was awarded an Honorary Academy Award in 2017 "for a lifetime of indelible characters, rendered with unwavering truthfulness," though he was never nominated for a competitive Oscar over his long career, which really took off after 1967's The Dirty Dozen.

He said in his acceptance speech at the time that the award "is very important to me, to my family."

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"It's like a door has opened and a cool, wonderfully fresh breath of air has come in. I wish I could say thank you to all of the characters that I've played, thank them for using their lives to inform my life," he continued. "I'd love to be able to thank the multitude of people who are responsible for me being here."

He also added of his wife, "And, of course, thank you to Francine Racette, from whom everything has come — that's my family — from whom everything has come, and to whom everything is owed. I have been a partner to her for over 45 years, and in all that she has supported me with her intelligence, her intuition, her instruction, her ability to make me laugh in the direst of situations, her extraordinary sense of taste, her residual belief in me."

Sutherland continued, "Amongst all of these, her ability to absorb and sustain the extraordinary ups and downs of this crazy movie life we have gone through. I mean, she deserves a medal for that. So, Francine, I'm going to get you a medal."

In 2022, Kiefer told The Guardian how his famous dad's career inspired his own Hollywood path.

"It's hard to think of another actor who's been as prolific and made films as diverse as Ordinary People, Don't Look Now, Fellini's Casanova, Bertolucci's 1900 and The Hunger Games," he said. "His influence was to make my career as diversified and interesting as possible, which he taught me by doing, not by saying, which was really cool."

Sutherland told Variety in 2014 that he didn't expect his Hunger Games role to be so iconic — to the point that young fans would ask him for photos for years afterward. Tom Blyth plays a younger version of Sutherland's Coriolanus Snow in the prequel film The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

"Usually, right before the picture is taken the young woman will say, 'Why do you look so mean?' " joked Sutherland, who also recalled of when he knew the franchise was a big deal, "I was at my dermatologist, and she asked me what I was doing next. I told her I was about to do something called The Hunger Games. She gasped and started calling everyone into the room, and they all came running. That was my first inkling it might be something big."