As we get older, the legends who inspired us do too. The truth about life is that we lose people along the way, until eventually we become the lost. Today, Donald Sutherland has passed at the age of 88. Most recently Sutherland portrayed a judge trying to find the measured interpretation of the law in Taylor Sheridan’s Paramount Plus limited series Lawmen: Base Reeves. His career led to over 200 credits on iMDB, spanning several decades. he also is the father of Kiefer Sutherland, who has had quite an impact on film and television in his own right.

Despite being such a well-known and prolific actor with many classic titles and roles to his name, he has no Oscar nominations. This injustice was addresssed in 2018 with an Honorary Oscar, but for a man whose career includes the Best Picture Winner Ordinary People, you have to wonder how he got left behind.

His oldest screen credit reaches back to 1962, when he played a switchboard operator in an episode of something called Studio 4. For comparison, President Kennedy was still alive, and President. The beginning of his acting career predates the moon landing, and really Sutherland would see the development of the space program, which I’m sure he later used when called upon to star in Space Cowboys opposite Clint Eastwood and James Garner.

He would go on to feature in such classics as the Dirty Dozen, M*A*S*H, Ordinary People, Kelly’s Heroes, Don’t Look Now, The Kentucky Fried Movie, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, The Great Train Robbery, JFK, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Six Degrees Of Separation, Backdraft, Disclosure, A Time To Kill, The Italian Job, Fallen, Cold Mountain, Pride and Prejudice, The Hunger Games, and so many more.

The first time I saw Donald Sutherland, from my best estimate, was in the movie Outbreak. I was aware that this guy was one of those legends at the time, even though I had somehow made it to age 12 before watching my first film featuring Sutherland. Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of watching him tackle a variety of roles. some of his best work has been later in life, opposite Helen Mirren. she got some awards attention, but Sutherland sadly did not. He did, however, get different awards attention for the excellent limited The undoing.

Despite the fact that he seemed to slip in and out of films so much we took him for granted, and he has just as many hits as misses, Donald sutherland left the kind of mark on Hollywood that cannot be forgotten. he’s worked with Steve McQueen, but he’s also worked with Jennifer Lawrence. From director Robert Redford to the late Anthony Minghella, he had the opportunity to work with some of the most respected directors.His wealth of knowledge, being able to talk about what it was like to work opposite someone like Robert Altman, and then years later share the screen with Charlie Sheen, or how he appeared in the original The Saint TV series, and years later returned to television in one-season wonders like Commander In Chief and Dirty Sexy money. So many in Hollywood had the opportunity to work opposite Sutherland, and because of that, and his massive film career, he certainly will not be forgotten.

For a legion of fans, he will always be President Snow. For people of a certain generation, he’ll always be remembered for MASH. But,as silly as it may sound, there’s something about Space Cowboys that has this good natured charm. Sutherland isn’t the bad guy, he’s just one legend among the crew, headed back into space for no reason other than someone thought putting these actors together would make for a nice safe box office hit. That combination led to a gross above 90M at the box office, and this perfectly accessible comedy with some screen legends proving that they can do a lot with not much.