The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (404 page)

She made four films with Frank Borzage, the director who coaxed out the shy intelligence to make romance mature, and she suffers to the extent that he is neglected. Equally, in
Next Time We Love, The Shopworn Angel, The Shop Around the Corner
, and
The Mortal Storm
, she was ideally cast with James Stewart, a little awed by his gangling sincerity. Perhaps her heart was never in a movie career, but in the late 1930s, as war cast its shadow on young people, she was exceptionally poignant and delicate.

She was originally a stage actress, seen by John Stahl and chosen to play in
Only Yesterday
(33). Universal signed her up, but only on terms so liberal as to suggest an actress anxious to protect herself against the system. She then made
Little Man, What Now?
(34, Borzage),
The Good Fairy
(35, William Wyler, and her second husband), and
So Red the Rose
(35, King Vidor). Her material was often tear-soaked:
Next Time We Love
(36, Edward H. Griffith);
The Moon’s Our Home
(36, William A. Seiter), a comedy, opposite Henry Fonda, her first husband; as the tubercular wife in
Three Comrades
(38, Borzage);
The Shopworn Angel
(38, H. C. Potter);
The Shining Hour
(38, Borzage).

A return to the stage and illness restricted her appearances, but her third husband, agent Leland Hayward, won her a good contract at MGM. With the onset of war, her skill with sentiment and some European settings reestablished her as a star: magnificent—no, better—in
The Shop Around the Corner
(40, Ernst Lubitsch);
The Mortal Storm
(40, Borzage);
So Ends Our Night
(41, John Cromwell);
Back Street
(41, Robert Stevenson); and
Appointment With Love
(41, Seiter).

After that flurry, she made
Cry Havoc
(43, Richard Thorpe) and went back to the theatre. She had a great success in
The Voice of the Turtle
, came back for a last movie, dying of cancer in
No
Sad Songs for Me
(50, Rudolph Maté), and took to the stage again. During her last ten years she was further beset by the deafness that had meant she could often not hear what actors were saying in front of the cameras, and eventually she committed suicide.

Anyone intrigued by her story is urged to read her daughter Brooke Hayward’s
Haywire
, one of the best books about family life in show business.

Donald Sutherland
, b. New Brunswick, Canada, 1934
From the University of Toronto, he went into acting and a period in England at RADA. He knocked around for several years in small parts:
Il Castello dei Morti Vivi
(64, Herbert Wise);
Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors
(64, Freddie Francis);
Fanatic
(65, Silvio Narizzano);
The Bedford Incident
(65, James B. Harris); and
Promise Her Anything
(66, Arthur Hiller). His part as a reprieved psychopath in
The Dirty Dozen
(67, Robert Aldrich) showed how securely an earlier generation and idiom identified him as a nasty. But after
Billion Dollar Brain
(67, Ken Russell);
Interlude
(68, Kevin Billington);
Oedipus the King
(68, Philip Saville);
Joanna
(68, Mike Sarne);
The Split
(68, Gordon Flemyng); he played two parts in
Start the Revolution Without Me
(70, Bud Yorkin) and, with Elliott Gould, comprised the shambling, esoteric sanity amid carnage in
M*A*S*H
(70, Robert Altman). That revealed him as a shy clown, but
M*A*S*H
holds all its characters at a distance and says more about corporate acting than about Sutherland’s real nature. It is in favor of private backchat affronting the outsider world, and it lends a glowing romance to these casual heroes.

Following that, Sutherland had much larger parts:
Kelly’s Heroes
(70, Brian G. Hutton); as the movie director in
Alex in Wonderland
(70, Paul Mazursky);
Act of the Heart
(70, Paul Almond); as Christ in
Johnny Got His Gun
(71, Dalton Trumbo); with Gould in
Little Murders
(71, Alan Arkin); outstanding as the detective who is less than well or steady in
Klute
(71, Alan J. Pakula); with Jane Fonda again in
Steelyard Blues
(72, Alan Myerson);
Lady Ice
(73, Tom Gries);
Don’t Look Now
(73, Nicolas Roeg); and once more with Gould in
S.P.Y.S
. (74, Irvin Kershner). There are several flops there and not one picture that Sutherland carried alone. He seemed more useful in films for his gaunt, disturbing, and disturbed appearance: the wretched Homer in
The Day of the Locust
(75, John Schlesinger); the bestial fascist in
1900
(75, Bernardo Bertolucci); an Irish rogue in
The Eagle Has Landed
(76, John Sturges); the cadaverous cock, without delight or direction, in Fellini’s
Casanova
(76); and
National Lampoon’s Animal House
(78, John Landis). He also made two pictures in his native Canada:
Blood Relatives
(78, Claude Chabrol) and
The Disappearance
(78, Stuart Cooper). Working at a gallop, he was in
Murder by Decree
(78, Bob Clark); a suitably nervy, paranoid victim in
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
(78, Philip Kaufman); a robber in
The Great Train Robbery
(79, Michael Crichton); and in
A Very Big Withdrawal
(79, Noel Black).

The older Sutherland has become not just versatile or unpredictable in his choices; he is nearly eccentric:
Bear Island
(79, Don Sharp); the best performance, as the father, in
Ordinary People
(80, Robert Redford);
Gas
(81, Les Rose); as the German agent in
Eye of the Needle
(81, Richard Marquand);
Threshold
(81, Richard Pearce);
Max Dugan Returns
(83, Herbert Ross); the Steinbeck adaptation
The Winter of Our Discontent
(83, Waris Hussein);
Crackers
(84, Louis Malle);
Ordeal by Innocence
(85, Desmond Davis);
Heaven Help Us
(85, Michael Dinner);
Revolution
(85, Hugh Hudson); as Gauguin in
The Wolf at the Door
(87, Henning Carlsen);
The Rosary Murders
(87, Fred Walton);
The Trouble with Spies
(87, Burt Kennedy);
Apprentice to Murder
(88, R. L. Thomas); a psychiatrist in
Lost Angels
(89, Hudson); the sadistic warden in
Lock Up
(89, John Flynn);
A Dry White Season
(89, Euzhan Palcy);
Eminent Domain
(90, John Irvin);
Bethune: The Making of a Hero
(90, Phillip Borsas);
Scream of Stone
(91, Werner Herzog); as a mad firebug, the best thing in
Backdraft
(91, Ron Howard); in
JFK
(91, Oliver Stone), loony and so omniscient he must be the scriptwriter; and
Six Degrees of Separation
(93, Fred Schepisi).

He remains an actor hovering between lead and supporting roles:
The Puppet Masters
(94, Stuart Orme);
Disclosure
(94, Barry Levinson);
Outbreak
(95, Wolfgang Petersen);
Hollow Point
(95, Sidney J. Furie);
A Time to Kill
(96, Joel Schumacher);
Shadow Conspiracy
(97, George P. Cosmatos);
The Assignment
(97, Christian Duguay);
Fallen
(98, Gregory Hoblit); coach Bill Bowerman in
Without Limits
(98, Robert Towne);
Free Money
(98, Yves Simoneau);
Virus
(99, John Bruno);
Instinct
(99, Jon Turteltaub); as General Beauregard in
The Hunley
(99, John Gray);
Toscano
(99, Dan Gordon);
Panic
(00, Henry Bromell);
Space Cowboys
(00, Clint Eastwood);
The Art of War
(00, Duguay);
Big Shot’s Funeral
(02, Xiaogang Feng); as Clark Clifford in
Path to War
(02, John Frankenheimer);
The Italian Job
(03, F. Gary Gray);
Baltic Storm
(03, Reuben Leder);
Cold Mountain
(03, Anthony Minghella);
Hating Her
(03, Thomas Bezucha);
Salem’s Lot
(04, Mikael Salomon);
Frankenstein
(04, Kevin Connor);
Aurora Borealis
(04, James C. E. Burke).

Not many of his films take enough trouble over his parts, but he’s ready still:
Fierce People
(05, Griffin Dunne); as Mr. Bennet in
Pride and Prejudice
(05, Joe Wright);
American Gun
(05, Arie Avelino);
An American Haunting
(06, Courtney Solomon);
Ask the Dust
(06, Towne);
Beerfest
(06, Jay Chandrasekhar);
Land of the Blind
(06, Robert Edwards);
Reign Over Me
(07, Mike Binder);
Puffball
(07, Roeg);
Fool’s Gold
(08, Andy Tennant).

Edward Sutherland
(1895–1974), b. London
1925:
Wild, Wild Susan; Coming Through; A Regular Fellow
. 1926:
It’s the Old Army Game; Behind the Front; We’re in the Navy Now
. 1927:
Love’s Greatest Mistake; Fireman, Save My Child; Figures Don’t Lie
. 1928:
Tillie’s Punctured Romance; The Baby Cyclone
. 1929:
Close Harmony
(codirected with John Cromwell);
What a Night!; The Dance of Life
(codirected with Cromwell);
Fast Company; The Saturday Night Kid; Pointed Heels
. 1930:
Burning Up; Paramount on Parade
(an episode);
The Social Lion; The Sap from Syracuse
. 1931:
Gang Buster; June Moon; Up Pops the Devil; Palmy Days
. 1932:
Sky Devils; Mr. Robinson Crusoe; Secrets of the French Police
. 1933:
Murders in the Zoo; International House; Too Much Harmony
. 1935:
Mississippi; Diamond Jim
. 1936:
Poppy
. 1937:
Champagne Waltz; Every Day’s a Holiday
. 1939:
Flying Deuces
. 1940:
The Boys from Syracuse; Beyond Tomorrow; One Night in the Tropics
. 1941:
The Invisible Woman; Nine Lives Are Not Enough; Steel Against the Sky
. 1942:
Sing Your Worries Away; Army Surgeon; The Navy Comes Through
. 1943:
Dixie
. 1944:
Follow the Boys; Secret Command
. 1945:
Having Wonderful Crime
. 1946:
Abie’s Irish Rose
. 1956:
Bermuda Affair
.

Sutherland was in America by the time he was twenty, as a stuntman and actor. His rise left him with several versions of the same name: Edward Sutherland, A. Edward Sutherland, and Eddie Sutherland. Perhaps that confusion showed a deeper insecurity. Louise Brooks, his wife from 1926–28, has said that Sutherland’s hopeful emulation of Chaplin was only skin-deep: “What they [Sutherland and Malcolm St. Clair] didn’t know was that when they were out drinking and playing around and dancing all night, Chaplin and Sennett were thinking about tomorrow.” In 1923, Sutherland had taken an ostentatious pay cut to be Chaplin’s assistant on
A Woman of Paris
, and by the late 1920s he was sometimes thought of as a leading director of comedy. But he cannot escape the slur that, despite being married to her, he allowed other directors to find the best in Louise Brooks. If Sutherland had been more talented, Brooks might have become a major star of the 1930s.

But it was an eventful career, with some pleasant moments. At Paramount as a young director, he worked with Raymond Griffith in
A Regular Fellow
, with Wallace Beery and Raymond Hatton in
Behind the Front
and
We’re in the Navy Now
. In 1926 he directed the first important W. C. Fields movie,
It’s the Old Army Game
, which also starred Brooks. Sutherland and Fields worked often together
—Tillie’s Punctured Romance; International House; Mississippi; Poppy
, when Fields was very ill from drink; and
Follow the Boys
, one of the best wartime all-star anthologies, in which Orson Welles saws Marlene Dietrich in half.

By then, Sutherland was on the slide. With Paramount through the early 1930s—apart from
Mr. Robinson Crusoe
with Douglas Fairbanks for United Artists—he had moved on to Laurel and Hardy in
Flying Deuces
, and then to Abbott and Costello in
One Night in the Tropics. The Invisible Woman
, made at Universal, has Maria Montez and John Barrymore together. After the war, he went into TV.

Kiefer Sutherland
, b. London, England, 1966
1993:
Last Light
(TV). 1997:
Truth or Consequences, N.M
. 2000:
Woman Wanted
.

Among other things, Kiefer Sutherland is a prodigious workhorse. Several years short of fifty, still, he has over fifty movie credits, with three films directed, to say nothing of the immense effort that carried Jack Bauer and
24
into their eighth season (with Sutherland not just as the hounded lead, but a series producer, too). In fact,
24
has changed the way the world sees Sutherland—after all, it won him a Golden Globe, and the kind of immediate recognition that accompanies TV fame. Yet it’s fascinating to note how far
24
is consistent with that other Sutherland—the actor of rather dubious integrity given to make every unlikely road or noir film that dares to ask him. Indeed, part of the
24
cult, I think, rests in Sutherland’s ambivalent nature and his record as an outsider figure who might do anything.
24
was always at its best when Jack Bauer was shaky—hardly able to trust himself—and that is the Kiefer Sutherland beloved by that small band that reckons
Truth or Consequence, N.M
. one of the medium’s great titles, and
Freeway
one of its masterpieces.