At the age of 88, the legendary actor Donald Sutherland, known for “The Dirty Dozen” and “The Hunger Games”, died.

Donald Sutherland, a prolific film and television actor whose long career spanned from “MASH” to “The Hunger Games,” has died. He was 88 years old.

Kiefer Sutherland, the actor’s son, confirmed his father’s death on Thursday. Additional details were not immediately available.

“I personally consider him to be one of the most important actors in the history of cinema,” Kiefer Sutherland said of X. “Never afraid of a role, good, bad or ugly. He loved what he did and did what he loved, and he could. Never ask for more than that.”

The tall and lanky Canadian actor, who can be sweet or with a sly grin, was known for offbeat characters like Hawkeye Pierce in Robert Altman’s “MASH,” a hippie tank commander in “Kelly’s Heroes” and a stoned professor in “Animal House.”

Before moving on to a major career as a respected character, Sutherland embodied the unpredictable, anti-establishment cinema of the 1970s.

Over the decades, Sutherland has shown his range in more subdued — but still eccentric — parts in Robert Redford’s “Ordinary People” and Oliver Stone’s “JFK.” Most recently, he starred in the “Hunger Games” movies. He never retired, working regularly until his death. A memoir, “Made Up But Still True,” was due out in November.

“I love to work. I love to work passionately,” Sutherland told Charlie Rose in 1998. “I love the feeling of my hand fitting into another character’s glove. I feel a tremendous sense of freedom—time stops for me. I am. Not as crazy as I used to be, but still a little crazy.”

Donald McNicol Sutherland was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, the son of a salesman and a math teacher. Raised in Nova Scotia, by the age of 14 he was a disc jockey with his own radio station.

“When I was 13 or 14, I thought that everything I felt was wrong and dangerous and that God would kill me for it,” Sutherland told The New York Times in 1981. “My father always said: ‘Watch your mouth.’ Shut up, Don, and maybe people will think you’ve got a temper.”

Sutherland began as an engineering student at the University of Toronto, but switched to English and began acting in school plays. While studying in Toronto, he met aspiring actress Lois Hardwick. They married in 1959 but divorced seven years later.

After graduating in 1956, Sutherland attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art to study acting. Sutherland began appearing in West End plays and on British television. After moving to Los Angeles, he continued to move until a series of war films changed his trajectory.

His first American film was The Dirty Dozen (1967), in which he played Vernon Pinkley, a psychopathic officer. 1970 saw the release of the World War II yarn “Kelly’s Heroes” and “MASH,” the famous smash hit that made Sutherland a star.

“There’s more of a challenge in character roles,” Sutherland told The Washington Post in 1970. “There is longevity. A good character actor can show a different face in every film and not bore the public.”

If Sutherland had his way, Altman would have been fired from MASH. But the film exceeded anyone’s expectations, and Sutherland became personally identified with its anti-war message. Sutherland, an activist against the Vietnam War, actress Jane Fonda and others founded Free Theater Associates in 1971. Banned by the military for their political views, they performed in 1973 at venues near military bases in Southeast Asia.

Sutherland’s career as a leading man peaked in the 1970s, when he starred in films by some of the best directors of the era – even if they didn’t always do the best work with him. Sutherland, who often said he saw himself as a servant of the director’s vision, worked with Federico Fellini (1976’s Casanova), Bernardo Bertolucci (1976’s 1900), Claude Chabrol (1978’s Blood Kin) and John Schlesing. 1975 “Day of the Locust”).

One of his best performances was as a detective in Alan Pakula’s Klutt (1971). It was on the set of “Klut” that he met Fonda, with whom he had a three-year relationship, which began at the end of his second marriage to actress Shirley Douglas. Married in 1966, she and Douglas divorced in 1971.

Sutherland had twins with Douglas in 1966: Rachel and Kiefer, named after Warren Kiefer, the writer of Sutherland’s first film, Prison of the Living Dead.

In 1974, the actor began living with actress Francine Rashette, with whom he remained. They had three children: Roeg, born in 1974, named after director Nicolas Roeg (“Don’t Look Now”); Rossiff, born in 1978 and named after director Frédéric Rossiff; and Angus Redford born in 1979 and named after Robert Redford.

It was Redford who, to the surprise of some, played Sutherland’s father in his directorial debut, 1980’s Ordinary People. Redford’s drama about a beautiful suburban family destroyed by tragedy won four Oscars, including Best Picture.

Sutherland was overlooked by the Academy for most of his career. It was never nominated, but was awarded an honorary Oscar in 2017. However, he did win an Emmy in 1995 for the TV movie “Citizen X” and was nominated for seven Golden Globes (including for his roles in “MASH” and “Mash. Regular People”), two wins – again for “Citizen X” and the 2003 TV for the movie “Road to War”.

“Ordinary People” also marked a shift in Sutherland’s career to more mature and sometimes less prominent characters.

However, his debut in New York in 1981 went horribly. He played Humbert Humbert in Edward Albee’s adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, and the reviews were merciless; It was closed after a dozen performances.

The 80s saw a period of decline thanks to failures such as the 1981 satire Gas and the 1984 comedy Crackers.

But Sutherland continued to work steadily. He had a brief but memorable role in Oliver Stone’s JFK (1991). He again played the role of patriarch to Redford in the 1993 film Six Degrees of Separation. He played Bill Bowerman’s coach in 1998’s “Without Borders.”

In the last decade, Sutherland has increasingly worked in television, most memorably on HBO’s “Road to War,” in which he portrayed President Lyndon Johnson’s Secretary of Defense, Clark Clifford. For a career launched by “MASH,” it was a fitting, if ironic, bookend.