Donald Sutherland

Donald Sutherland died three days ago. I always liked this bit from Animal House, despite the fact that I don't find Milton boring. I even think his jokes are funny. I love the one about the crows in his History of Britain.

Sutherland could be quite funny. He could convey tremendous gravity and vulnerability, too, as he does in perhaps his best role as a man grieving his daughter's death, beset by strange phenomena in Venice in Don't Look Now. With those perpetual shadows on his eyes and slightly husky voice, it's never hard to imagine him as a haunted man.

He became a familiar face in supporting roles over the decades, in a wide variety of films, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, to Cold Mountain, to The Hunger Games. Generally as a figure of sympathetic authority--sometimes sinister, deceptively sympathetic. There will definitely be a void in his absence.