Kiefer Sutherland Pays Touching Tribute to His Late Father Donald

Sutherland, who starred in 24, celebrated his father as one of Hollywood's greats.

By Russ Burlingame

Almost immediately after news broke that award-winning actor Donald Sutherland had passed away, his son Kiefer took to social media to share an emotional farewell to the father who shared his career. Sharing a photo of the pair together from back when Kiefer was a toddler, Sutherland said that his father "loved what he did, and did what he loved," and called him "one of the most important actors in the history of film." Sharing the brief statement to Instagram and other social media platforms, Sutherland quickly received hundreds of sympathetic comments, including from other celebrities who know the family personally.

Donald Sutherland was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, on July 17, 1935. His biggest acting break on the big screen came in the 1967 World War II drama The Dirty Dozen, where he played Vernon Pinkley. Sutherland is also known for his iconic roles in The Hunger Games franchise, MASH, Animal House, and much more. He is a former Emmy winner for his role in Citizen X, and is a 2017 Honorary Oscar recipient.

You can see the post below.

Kiefer is one of Donald's four sons, along with his brothers Roeg, Rossif and Angus. Donald Sutherland also had a daughter, Rachel. Kiefer and Donald Sutherland appeared in a number of projects together, including  followed in his father's footsteps as an actor, and the father-son duo starred together in projects several times throughout the years, including the movies "Max Dugan Returns" (1983), "Forsaken" (2015) and "A Time to Kill" (1996). He never actually shared the screen with his father until 2016's Forsaken.

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"We had never actually exchanged a line of dialogue together, but I've watched him my whole life, and to have the opportunity to work with him was something I've wanted for my whole career," Sutherland told Good Morning America at the time. "I think he's an unbelievable physical actor, and there was something that he was doing in that scene with his hand that caught my eye, and I was thinking as an actor, 'I should remember that, that's really cool,' but I thought, 'Well, maybe it would have been better if I remembered the dialogue I was supposed to say at that moment.'"

Sutherland was recently added to the cast of the Paramount+ series Lawmen: Bass Reeves as Judge Isaac Parker, an imposing and commanding judge in the Fort Smith Courthouse with a complicated legacy. The anthology series hails from Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan.

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