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Tributes have poured in for actor Donald Sutherland after he died following a long illness.

The 88-year-old was best known for his roles in Ordinary People, The Hunger Games franchise and M*A*S*H.

His son, Kiefer Sutherland, confirmed the news “with a heavy heart” as Oscar-winner Jane Fonda and other stars of the big screen led tributes to the Canadian actor.

“With a heavy heart, I tell you that my father, Donald Sutherland, has passed away.

“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,” the son said of his father.

File photo dated 05/11/15 of Donald Sutherland attending the UK Premiere of The Hunger Games:…
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Donald Sutherland attending the UK premiere of The Hunger Games

Among Sutherland’s best-known roles was the detective John Klute, who attempted to protect Fonda’s character Bree Daniels from a killer stalking her.

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US actress Fonda shared a black-and-white image of Sutherland from their 1971 hit where she won her Oscar for best actress, and said: “I am heartbroken,”.

The pair dated for a period in 1971 and staged a travelling anti-war roadshow for US soldiers.

Actor Donald Sutherland answers questions from film critic Leonard Maltin in 1998. Pic: Reuters
Image:
Actor Donald Sutherland answers questions from film critic Leonard Maltin in 1998. Pic: Reuters

Leading politicians like US President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also paid tribute after the actor’s passing.

Mr Trudeau called him a “truly great Canadian artist”, after he learned of his death during a news conference relating to a national school food programme.

Mr Biden described Sutherland as a “one-of-a-kind actor who inspired and entertained the world for decades” in a post on X.

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Flowers placed on Sutherland’s star

Dame Helen Mirren was among the British actors and actresses paying tribute.

She appeared alongside Sutherland in 2017’s The Leisure Seeker, following their 1990 drama Bethune: The Making Of A Hero.

“Donald Sutherland was one of the smartest actors I ever worked with,” Dame Helen said in a statement.

“He had a wonderful enquiring brain and a great knowledge on a wide variety of subjects.

“He combined this great intelligence with a deep sensitivity and with a seriousness about his profession as an actor.

“This all made him into the legend of film that he became.”

Most recently, many will know Sutherland from his role in The Hunger Games franchise where he played dictator President Coriolanus Snow.

The official account for The Hunger Games film called him “the kindest man in the world” who portrayed “the most corrupt, ruthless dictator we’ve ever seen”.

Sutherland with his son Kiefer. Pic: Reuters
Image:
Sutherland with his son Kiefer. Pic: Reuters

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Throughout his career, Sutherland is perhaps best known as the womanising Captain Benjamin Franklin ‘Hawkeye’ Pierce Junior, from the 1970 film version M*A*S*H.

His co-star Elliott Gould, who played the Captain ‘Trapper’ John Francis Xavier McIntyre, called Sutherland a “giant” who was “enormously kind and generous”.

Gould recalled they were both “young fathers” when they worked together and said his death “really profoundly hurts because Donald was like my brother, and a big part of my own career”.

Rob Lowe, known for his role in The West Wing and a number of other movies, said Sutherland was “one of our greatest actors” and that it had been an “honour” to star alongside him on the miniseries Salem’s Lot, in 2004.

“I will never forget his charisma and ability,” Lowe said.

Others, including Elijah Wood, who rose to fame playing Frodo Baggins, paid tribute as well.

Sutherland is survived by his wife Francine Racette, sons Roeg, Rossif, Angus, and Kiefer, daughter Rachel, and four grandchildren.

His agency said a private celebration of his life will be held by the family.

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Former BBC executive and presenter Alan Yentob dies

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Former BBC executive and presenter Alan Yentob dies

Alan Yentob, the former BBC presenter and executive, has died aged 78.

A statement from his family, shared by the BBC, said Yentob died on Saturday.

His wife Philippa Walker said: “For Jacob, Bella and I, every day with Alan held the promise of something unexpected. Our life was exciting, he was exciting.

“He was curious, funny, annoying, late, and creative in every cell of his body. But more than that, he was the kindest of men and a profoundly moral man. He leaves in his wake a trail of love a mile wide.”

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Yentob joined the BBC as a trainee in 1968 and held a number of positions – including controller of BBC One and BBC Two, director of television, and head of music and art.

He was also the director of BBC drama, entertainment, and children’s TV.

Yentob launched CBBC and CBeebies, and his drama commissions included Pride And Prejudice and Middlemarch.

Alan Yentob with former BBC director general Tony Hall in 2012. Pic: Reuters.
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Alan Yentob (left) with former BBC director general Tony Hall in 2012. Pic: Reuters.

The TV executive was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by the King in 2024 for services to the arts and media.

In a tribute, the BBC’s director-general Tim Davie said: “Alan Yentob was a towering figure in British broadcasting and the arts. A creative force and a cultural visionary, he shaped decades of programming at the BBC and beyond, with a passion for storytelling and public service that leave a lasting legacy.

“Above all, Alan was a true original. His passion wasn’t performative – it was personal. He believed in the power of culture to enrich, challenge and connect us.”

BBC Radio 4 presenter Amol Rajan described him on Instagram as “such a unique and kind man: an improbable impresario from unlikely origins who became a towering figure in the culture of post-war Britain.

“I commend his spirit to the living.”

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Gillian Anderson warns UK homelessness ‘will only get worse’

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Gillian Anderson warns UK homelessness 'will only get worse'

Gillian Anderson has warned homelessness is a growing problem in the UK – one that will only get worse if we enter a recession.

The award-winning actress, who is playing a woman facing homelessness along with her husband in her latest film, The Salt Path, told Sky News: “It’s interesting because I feel like it’s even changed in the UK in the last little while.”

Born in Chicago, and now living in London, she explained: “I’m used to seeing it so much in Vancouver and California and other areas that I spent time. You don’t often see it as much in the UK.”

Her co-star in the film, White Lotus actor Jason Isaacs, chips in: “You do now.”

“It’s now becoming more and more prevalent since COVID,” said Anderson, “and the current financial situation in the country and around the world.

“It’s a topic that I think will be more and more in the forefront of people’s minds, particularly if we end up going into a recession.”

Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear
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Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs in The Salt Path. Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear

The film is based on Raynor Winn’s 2018 memoir, which depicts her and her husband’s 630-mile trek along the Cornish, Devon and Dorset coastline, walking from Minehead, Somerset to Land’s End.

Written from her notes on the journey, The Salt Path went on to sell over a million copies worldwide and spent nearly two years in The Sunday Times bestseller list. Winn’s since written two more memoirs.

Isaacs, who plays her husband Moth Winn in the movie, told Sky News that Winn told him she “hopes [the film] makes people look at homeless people when they walk by in a different light, give them a second look and maybe talk to them”.

With record levels of homelessness in the UK, with a recent Financial Times analysis showing one in every 200 households in the UK is experiencing homelessness, the cost of living crisis is worsening an already serious problem.

Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear
Image:
Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear

The film sees Ray and Winn let down by the system, first by the court which evicts them from their home, then by the council which tells them despite a terminal diagnosis they don’t qualify for emergency housing.

Following the loss of their family farm shortly after Moth’s shock terminal diagnosis with rare neurological condition Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD), the couple find solace in nature.

They set off with just a tent and two backpacks to walk the coastal path.

Isaacs says living in a transient way comes naturally to actors, admitting like his character, he too “lives out of a suitcase” and is “away on jobs often”.

Read more:
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Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear
Image:
Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear

Shot in 2023 across Somerset, Devon, Cornwall and Wales, Anderson says as a city-dweller, the locations had an impact on her.

Anderson reveals: “As I’ve gotten older, I have become more aware of nature than […] when I was younger, and certainly in filming this film and being outside and so much of nature being a third character, it did shift my thinking around it.”

Meanwhile, Isaacs says he discovered a “third character” leading the film just the day before our interview, when speaking to Winn on the phone.

Isaacs says the author told him: “I feel like there’s three characters in the film,” going on, “I thought she was going to say nature, but she said, ‘No, that path'”.

Isaacs elaborates: “Not just nature, but that path where the various biblical landscapes you get and the animals, they matter.

“The things that happen on that path were a huge part of their own personal story and hopefully the audience’s journey as well.”

The Salt Path comes to UK cinemas on Friday 30 May.

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Hannah Gutierrez-Reed: Weapons supervisor convicted in fatal shooting on Alec Baldwin film set freed from jail

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Hannah Gutierrez-Reed: Weapons supervisor convicted in fatal shooting on Alec Baldwin film set freed from jail

A weapons supervisor who was jailed for involuntary manslaughter over the fatal shooting of Halyna Hutchins on the set of the Alec Baldwin movie, Rust, has been freed.

Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was released on parole from the Western New Mexico Correctional Facility in Grants on Friday, after serving her 18-month sentence, NBC News, Sky’s US partner said, quoting New Mexico Corrections Department spokesperson, Brittany Roembach.

Gutierrez-Reed was released to return home to Bullhead City, Arizona, where she will be on parole for a year for the manslaughter case.

RUST armourer Hannah Gutierrez Reed jailed for involuntary manslaughter of Halyna Hutchins, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA - 15 Apr 2024
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed in court today as she is jailed 18 months for the involuntary manslaughter on the set of the Rust movie on October 21, 2021 over the fatal shooting of the movie's cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins.

15 Apr 2024
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Hannah Gutierrez-Reed in court as she was jailed for 18 months for involuntary manslaughter. Pic: Rex/Shutterstock

Halyna Hutchins pictured in 2017 at an Artists for Peace and Justice party, 70th Cannes Film Festival, France
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Halyna Hutchins pictured in 2017. Pic: Rex/Shutterstock

She was in charge of weapons during the production of the Western film in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in October 2021, when a prop gun held by star and co-producer Alec Baldwin went off during a rehearsal.

Cinematographer Hutchins died following the incident, while director Joel Souza was injured.

Gutierrez-Reed was acquitted of charges of tampering with evidence in the investigation, but will be on probation over a separate conviction for unlawfully carrying a gun into a Santa Fe bar where firearms are banned weeks before Rust began filming.

Actor Alec Baldwin reacts after the judge threw out the involuntary manslaughter case for the 2021 fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during filming of the Western movie "Rust," Friday, July 12, 2024, at Santa Fe County District Court in Santa Fe, N.M. (Pool Video via AP)
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Alec Baldwin reacts after the judge threw out the involuntary manslaughter case against him. Pic: AP

Involuntary manslaughter means causing someone’s death due to negligence, without intending to.

At her 10-day trial in New Mexico in March last year, prosecutors blamed Gutierrez-Reed for unwittingly bringing live ammunition onto the set of Rust and for failing to follow basic gun safety protocols.

The 18-month sentence she was given was the maximum available for the offence.

Baldwin, 67, was also charged with involuntary manslaughter, but the case was dramatically dismissed by the judge during his trial last July over mistakes made by police and prosecutors, including allegations of withholding ammunition evidence from the defence.

The actor had always denied the charge, maintaining he did not pull the gun’s trigger and that others on the set were responsible for safety checks on the weapon.

Rust was finished in Montana and released earlier this month, minus the scene they were working on when Hutchins was shot, Souza, speaking at November’s premiere in Poland, said.

Rust is billed as the story of a 13-year-old boy who, left to fend for himself and his younger brother following their parents’ deaths in 1880s Wyoming, goes on the run with his long-estranged grandfather after being sentenced to hang for the accidental killing of a local rancher.

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