They really don’t make film stars like Donald Sutherland anymore, and in A Life on Screen, Marlon Thayne gives him the full, vividly colorful biography he has long deserved.
Never a conventional matinee idol, Sutherland made his name in M*A*S*H, Klute, and The Day of the Locust, proving that you didn’t need heartthrob looks to command the screen. Instead, he became the creator of some of cinema’s most sinister and most sympathetic characters, building a career that spans more than a hundred films and countless television roles. Thayne follows him from his Canadian childhood to his rise as one of Hollywood’s most versatile and fearless performers, and the journey is enthralling from start to finish.
Spanning decades, the book celebrates the best of Sutherland’s work, from films that have become bona fide classics: Kelly’s Heroes, The Eagle Has Landed, Klute, The Eye of the Needle, Casanova, JFK, The Hunger Games, and Space Cowboys. Along the way come equally memorable turns in Don’t Look Now, National Lampoon’s Animal House, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Ordinary People, Johnny Got His Gun, Six Degrees of Separation, Citizen X, and Uprising, among many others.
Readers also meet a dazzling galaxy of screen greats, from Robert De Niro, Sylvester Stallone, Federico Fellini, and Robert Redford to Gene Wilder, Michael Caine, Clint Eastwood, and Jane Fonda.
What emerges is a portrait of a hugely talented, intelligent man, a true legend in his own lifetime who never failed to deliver. Packed with remarkable insights and written with obvious affection, Thayne’s biography is a fitting and irresistible tribute to one of Hollywood’s greatest actors.
