Upcoming memoir examines Sutherland’s long life in film
— Donald Sutherland has a memoir coming out in November reflecting on his life of nearly 90 years and his 60-year career as one of Hollywood’s top actors in films like M.A.S.H., Klute, Ordinary People and The Hunger Games saga.
Crown announced Wednesday that Sutherland’s Made Up, But Still True will be published Nov. 12, when the actor will be 89 years old.
“Donald Sutherland has made an indelible mark on the industry since his life-changing role in M*A*S*H catapulted him into the public eye nearly sixty years ago,” the publisher said in a statement. “With his raw honesty and wicked sense of humour, the renowned actor chronicles his life in this generation-defining book, cataloguing with powerful detail his far too many brushes with death, his loving relationship with his parents, and behind-the-scenes stories of the movies he’s starred in.”
A major figure in the New Hollywood of the 1970s who has worked steadily since, Sutherland was long considered among the best actors never to have been nominated for an Academy Award, despite appearing in several films that won the biggest of them. He was given an honorary Oscar for career achievement in 2017. He also has an Emmy and two Golden Globes.
Made Up, But Still True will be his first work as an author.
Born in Saint John, New Brunswick, Sutherland barely survived a series of childhood diseases, including infantile paralysis, rheumatoid fever and spinal meningitis.
He chronicles those struggles in the book, along with his burgeoning teenage sexuality and his love for acting. He began acting on screen in the early 1960s.
Sutherland broke through in Hollywood with a small role in the 1967 Second World War classic The Dirty Dozen, and broke big with a starring role as Hawkeye Pierce in Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H.
He worked with auteurs including Nicolas Roeg in Don’t Look Now and Federico Fellini in Fellini’s Casanova. And he appeared just as often in more popular fare, playing a spacey tank commander in Kelly’s Heroes, a demented arsonist in Backdraft and an authoritarian president in the Hunger Games films.
Some of Sutherland’s five children are also actors, most notably Kiefer Sutherland of The
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