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Jane Fonda Reacts to Ex Donald Sutherland’s Death: A ‘Brilliant Actor and Complex Man’
Jane Fonda shared how she’s been left “heartbroken” by ex Donald Sutherland‘s death while sharing a moving tribute about some of their times together.
“I am stunned to hear that Donald Sutherland has died. He was my fascinating costar in Klute and we loved working together. In this photo we are on the Klute set with director Alan Pakula,” Jane, 86, shared in an Instagram post on Thursday, June 20, shortly after Donald’s son Kiefer Sutherland announced his dad’s death at the age of 88.
Jane’s black-and-white photo showed the Hunger Games alum staring intensely forward while getting ready for a scene, while she stood next to him with a camera behind them.
“Donald was a brilliant actor and a complex man who shared quite a few adventures with me, such as the FTA Show, an anti-Vietnam war tour that performed for 60,000 active duty soldiers, sailors, and marines in Hawaii, Okinawa, the Philippines, and Japan in 1971. I am heartbroken,” the Grace and Frankie star added.
Jane and Donald dated from 1970 through 1972, around the time they made the the iconic 1971 film Klute, for which she took home a Best Actress Oscar.
The Monster-in-Law star reminisced about Donald in her 2006 memoir, My Life So Far. She called him an “old-world gentleman” and gushed about his “rangy, hangdog quality,” saying that she found his “droopy, pale blue eyes especially appealing.”
For his part, Donald opened up about the pain of their breakup in a 2008 interview with The Guardian.
“The relationship exploded and fell apart in Tokyo. It broke my heart,” he said. “I was eviscerated. I was so sad. It was a wonderful relationship right up to the point we lived together.”
After his split from Jane, Donald married Canadian actress Francine Racette in 1972. Their marriage lasted until his death and produced three sons, Rossif Sutherland, Angus Sutherland and Roeg Sutherland.
Donald had two previous marriages. His first was to teacher Lois Hardwick, which lasted from 1959 through 1966. The year of their divorce, the M*A*S*H star wed Shirley Douglas. The couple welcomed twins Kiefer and Rachel on December 21, 1966. They divorced in 1971.
Kiefer, 57, announced his dad’s passing in an Instagram post. Next to a black-and-white photo of the pair when the 24 alum was a young boy, he wrote, “With a heavy heart, I tell you that my father, Donald Sutherland, has passed away.”
He continued, “I personally think one of the most important actors in the history of film. Never daunted by a role, good, bad or ugly. He loved what he did and did what he loved, and one can never ask for more than that. A life well lived.”
With a career that spanned over seven decades, Donald gained a new generation of fans appreciative of his talent thanks to his role as President Coriolanus Snow in the Hunger Games franchise opposite Jennifer Lawrence.
“I wasn’t offered it,” he told GQ in a 2014 interview. “I like to read scripts, and it captured my passion. I wrote them a letter. The role of the president had maybe a line in the script. Maybe two. Didn’t make any difference. I thought it was an incredibly important film, and I wanted to be a part of it. I thought it could wake up an electorate that had been dormant since the ’70s.”
He continued, “I hadn’t read the books. To be truthful, I was unaware of them. But they showed my letter to the director, Gary Ross, and he thought it’d be a good idea if I did it. He wrote those wonderfully poetic scenes in the rose garden, and they formed the mind and wit of Coriolanus Snow.”
