Remembering Donald Sutherland
Photo: Donald Sutherland, 1935–2024.
Remembering Donald Sutherland
By Bob Irvine
Over the years, I had two face-to-face encounters with Donald Sutherland. Both were brief but also very pleasant. First some background.
My wife, Karen, and I try to get down whenever we can to our summer cottage on the east side of Lake Memphremagog in Quebec’s Eastern Townships. The lake is 50 km long, running from Newport, Vermont in the south to the city of Magog, Quebec at its north end.
Magog is seven km north of our cottage. The town is a bustling tourist centre with a population of 30,000. Eight km to our south – also on our side of the lake – is the village of Georgeville. The town, which has a population just in the hundreds, is a pretty piece of old-time New England that happens to be in Quebec. Founded in 1797, Georgeville has two stately churches, a village square, Greek Revival-style white houses and a schoolhouse converted into a place for meetings: Murray Hall. Just at the south end of the village lies Dunkeld, a large mansion and ample grounds, established for a Montreal business magnate in the 1800s and now owned by the Sutherlands. Among the various places where he and his family would live, Donald Sutherland would call Georgeville his “emotional home.”
Now back to my interactions with Donald. (Everyone in Georgeville called him by his first name.) The first time I met Donald was in the early 1980s. Donald and I and our wives had both just finished with cashiers at a supermarket in Magog. In an age before selfies and texts, I asked Donald if he could kindly write an autograph for my niece, Heather, in Victoria, B.C. Karen found a blank envelope. With a broad smile and taking his time, Donald wrote a personalized note to Heather. I thanked Donald profusely, and we went our separate ways.
The next time I met Donald was in 2005. It was just after the release of a new movie, Pride and Prejudice, in which Donald had starred. Donald, who was passionate about the health of Lake Memphremagog, was attending an update in Georgeville by a watchdog group on the state of the lake. I and many others were also there. Karen was playing bridge with girlfriends.
After the meeting ended, I noticed that Donald was standing alone. I approached him. I instantly started gushing about how great he was in the movie. Here was our exchange:
Irvine: I wanted to say that my wife and I feel you absolutely hit it out of the park as Mr. Bennet. We loved how, as the gentle patriarch, you kept a steady hand on the tiller as you and Mrs. Bennet cared for your five highly marriageable daughters.
Sutherland: Thank you. You’re kind. [Donald pauses, then leans closer as if he’s about to share a bigtime showbiz secret.] You know, we needed to make two different endings to the movie: one for audiences in the U.S. and Canada and another for the rest of the world.
Irvine: Oh!
Sutherland: Yeah, at the end of the movie, we knew that the rest of the world would instantly recognize that Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy were deeply in love and would soon marry. But, especially for American audiences, we needed to make it totally explicit – a sort of paint-by-numbers – that clearly showed that the couple had really hit if off and would build a life together.
I would later check: the Pride and Prejudice of 2005, as shown in the U.S. and Canada, is six minutes longer than anywhere else in the world.
From time to time, we would see Donald and his family around Georgeville. One time, Karen and I were shopping in the village’s small general store. From the other side of the store, we could hear Donald’s trained-for-the-stage voice call out: “What a beautiful head of cauliflower! We could make a great soup with it!”
There was an annual show in July in Murray Hall that showcased the works of artists of the village and surrounding region. The show always kicked off with an evening vernissage. Donald would arrive with a big wad of American bills. He would then talk at length with every artist about their techniques and paintings. By the end of the evening, Donald had supported many of the artists by buying their works.
Donald was a man who was a master at his craft. He loved life and actively engaged with the world around him. Everyone in the village misses him.
Bob Irvine is a sometime Glebe resident and frequent contributor to the Glebe Report, especially around April 1 each year.
