So long, Don

With all the trans Atlantic and transcontinental moves there have been in my life, how on earth do I still have this?

I must have been ten years old when I went to see this play. Afterwards I was very cheeky (pushy) and somehow made my way to the dressing room to get the autographs of all the actors.

I suppose I found it somewhere when I was in my teens, looked at the signature on the top of the page and the cast list inside…

… and suddenly realised, bloody hell, the gangly young actor who’d played Tom was none other than Donald Sutherland – although not yet Donald. That was the only time our paths ever crossed. Perhaps I’ve held on to the programme for today.

Donald Sutherland. Oh, my. So many films, so many wonderful performances.

Clearly Tom the squire didn’t make a huge impression om me, but this did.

My movie mad friend Angelika and I definitely weren’t old enough to get in to see this one, but somehow we did.

Forbidden love, oh, my! Yes, we were titillated.

And then in 1973 he suddenly became super sexy.

Was it the moustache? Really? Oh, well, it was the seventies. Angelika, who doesn’t like the sight of blood, actually fainted at the end of the film. And all these years later, that was one of the first things I thought of when I heard Sutherland had died.

I loved him in everything I saw him in. I love the fact that his first wife was Shirley Douglas, daughter of Tommy, and that his son Kiefer is Tommy Douglas’s grandson. I love the fact that he always remained proudly and fiercely Canadian.

The latter may be why Canada Post decided to commemorate him last year with his very own set of stamps.

Sutherland was so delighted that, in an interview on CBC radio, he invited Canadians to send him mail using the stamp and provided his general delivery address in Quebec. Apparently he was inundated, which I’m sure also delighted him.

When a friend of mine mentioned this on Facebook after hearing the interview, I did think about doing what I did yesterday and digging out and scanning that old programme cover to send with a note asking if he remembered the play? Wish I had. Too late now.

Thanks for everything, Donald.