Donald Sutherland died at the age of 88, leaving behind his wife Francine Racette, sons Roeg, Rossif, Angus and Kiefer, and daughter Rachel.
Donald Sutherland died at the age of 88, leaving behind his wife Francine Racette, sons Roeg, Rossif, Angus and Kiefer, and daughter Rachel. The actor has had four grandchildren.
Donald was married three times. His first marriage, to Lois May Hardwick, lasted from 1959 to 1966. His second marriage was to Shirley Douglas. Donald and Shirley were married from 1966 to 1970 and had two children, twins Kiefer and Rachel.
He then married French-Canadian actress and co-star Francine Racette in 1972, after meeting her on the set of Alien Thunder. The couple welcomed three sons together, Rossif Sutherland, Angus Redford Sutherland and Roeg Sutherland.
Donald and Francine remained together for five decades. He previously spoke about the decisions he made in his career and the Hunger Games star spoke about his relationship with Francine. “It was all my fault. “I was very foolish,” he told The Guardian in 2005. “But if I hadn’t made the mistakes I made, I wouldn’t have met the wonderful woman I’ve been married to for over 30 years, so I guess she makes the right mistakes.” mistakes”.
Francine was born in September 1947 in Quebec, Canada. She graduated from the National Theater School of Canada in 1966. She is also an actress and has worked in American and French films. She worked in films such as Four Flies on Gray Velvet, Lumière and Les Vilaines Manières. She worked with her late husband twice and they co-starred in Alien Thunder and The Disappearance.
After meeting Donald on the set of Alien Thunder in 1972, the couple married that same year. The film was released in 1974. That year the couple also welcomed their first child, Roeg, named after director Nicolas Roeg.
In September 1978, the couple welcomed their second son, Rossif, named after director Frédéric Rossif. Then, in September 1982, Francine gave birth to her third child, Angus Redford, named after actor and director Robert Redford.
He retired from acting in the 1980s, his last film being the 1987 biographical drama Au revoir les enfants.
In 2008, The Guardian asked Donald if he had been “lucky” to “marry the right woman.”
“I don’t know… It’s not something you can communicate. She is an extraordinary human. She was courted by intellectuals. Jean Paul Sartre? She was his actress. She was Frédéric Rossif’s muse,” she said, “I think it’s like Joanne Woodward (the actress and wife of Paul Newman) said: ‘Beauty goes and sex goes, but my husband makes me laugh every day.’ And my wife too. We laugh all the time.”
The Pride and Prejudice actor never held back when it came to praising his wife. When he accepted an Honorary Academy Award in 2017, he took that opportunity to thank her.
“And, of course, thanks to Francine Racette, from whom everything comes, my family, from whom everything comes and to whom everything is owed,” he said in his speech. “I have been a companion to her for more than 45 years, and through it all she has supported me with her intelligence, her intuition, her instruction, her ability to make me laugh in the most difficult situations, her extraordinary sense of taste, her residual faith in me.”
He added: “Among all of this, his ability to absorb and sustain the extraordinary highs and lows of this crazy movie life we’ve been through. I mean, she deserves a medal for that. “Then, Francine, I will get you a medal.”
Donald’s son Kiefer announced the news of his father’s passing on Thursday, June 20. He shared a photo of himself with the legendary actor, along with a touching tribute. “It is with a heavy heart that I tell you that my father, Donald Sutherland, has passed away,” Kiefer wrote. “Personally, I think he is one of the most important actors in the history of cinema. He never shies away from a role, good, bad or ugly. He loved what he did and he did what he loved, and you can never ask for more than that. life well lived.”
CAA confirmed that the actor died after a “long illness.”
