Six Things, Volume 70

Donald | Sound | Automata | Shade | Pastels | Reactions

Jun 23, 2024

In 1968, a young Canadian actor was dying.

He’d been filming in Yugoslavia, contracted bacterial meningitis in the Danube, and found himself in hospital, condition critical and deteriorating. He was all but gone. The wife of a friend came to visit, saw the state of him, wept, turned and ran. Doctors discussed the returning of the body to North America.

People who have survived near-death experiences report a range of sensations – commonly, they feel as if they have left their body and are observing proceedings as a detached onlooker. Sometimes they can see and hear everything, from their own body lying comatose on a table to the frenzied resuscitation attempts of the medical staff. The emotions experienced during these interludes range from the negative – sensations of torment and torture – to overwhelmingly positive feelings of peace, well-being, unconditional love and acceptance. They might see a tunnel, or watch themselves moving upwards through passageways or staircases, or find themselves blinded by a sudden coruscation.

Our Canadian actor’s experience was strongly on the positive end of the spectrum. He stood behind his own right shoulder and watched himself slide down a blue tunnel. He was filled with serenity, an overwhelming sense that everything was going to be just fine – the journey, the arrival, the subsuming into the matte white light that lay at the bottom of wherever. All very seductive.

And then, for whatever reason, he saw himself stop, held fast by something deep inside him that resisted the comforting lure of oblivion. He’d already endured illness in his life. As a child he’d suffered from rheumatic fever and polio. Did those experiences toughen him, somehow prepare him for that moment? Did they enable him to look at the soothing white expanse and take the more difficult, less tempting option?

Easy to speculate; impossible to know.

Whatever, he dug his heels in, decided that no, he wasn’t going to die – not there, not then – and brazenly continued to live, a pleasing habit he maintained until three days ago.

He was, as you might already have guessed (not least from the large photograph of him at the top of the page), Donald Sutherland.

He was six years into his screen-acting career, with the usual assemblage of bit parts and non-speaking roles to his name. Switchboard Operator, Tall Man in Nightclub, Canadian.

It’s easy enough, with the benefit of hindsight, to see when his break came, but we forget that at the time each piece of work was a break in itself – to be an actor in more or less continued employment is to be among the elite. Nevertheless, we cast our eyes over his early filmography – The World Ten Times Over, Castle of the Living Dead, Dr Terror’s House of Horrors, The Bedford Incident – with barely a flicker of recognition. Court Martial, Gideon’s Way, Promise Her Anything. Nope. Episodes of The Saint and The Avengers – aha, now we’re getting somewhere. The Shuttered Room, The Dirty Dozen.

Ah yes. Now I remember.

Even his relatively small role in The Dirty Dozen (1967) was a break of sorts. It wasn’t what he signed up for.

The scene in which he pretends to be a general inspecting the troops only fell into his lap when Clint Walker refused to do it. Director Robert Aldrich looked around and saw Sutherland. ‘You, with the big ears. You do it.’ On such vagaries are careers built. From that eye-catching role came a life-changing piece of casting: Captain Hawkeye Pierce in M*A*S*H. And almost simultaneously he got the part of Oddball in the comedy adventure Kelly’s Heroes. And it was while filming Kelly’s Heroes, shortly before M*A*S*H went into production, that his promising career was nearly nipped in the bud.

But he was no James Dean, no Marilyn Monroe or Heath Ledger. This wouldn’t have been the snuffing out of a shining star. Our memory of him wouldn’t have been crystallised for all time as something untouchable, something painfully perfect, the talent already blossoming, leaving only the bitter pang of disappointment.

Sutherland was, at that stage, just another one of those actors – beginning to forge a path, not obviously destined for stardom, a man of above average height and (so he maintained) below average looks. When he was sixteen, no doubt seeking validation, he asked his mother, ‘Am I good-looking?’ After a pause, his mother gave him the most honest answer she could: ‘Your face has character, Donald.’ The distraught teenager went to his room and stayed there for two days.

(For the avoidance of doubt, Donald Sutherland was incontrovertibly hot. Charisma does that.)

Had he died then, there would have been a story in the newspaper, some sadness from those who had seen his films, and then, when The Dirty Dozen came on the television at Christmas, we would have watched it and said, ‘God, remember him? He died, didn’t he? Sad. Pass the Quality Street.’

Instead, we got to enjoy his many performances – not always in masterpieces, although you’d be hard pressed to find a duff performance from him – and his warm, intelligent, slightly odd humanity, for six decades. We can all be grateful that he resisted the soothing allure of the blue tunnel all those years ago, and I hope that when the moment came it was something like that early experience.

(The above is a revised version of something I wrote in Music To Eat Cake By about Second Chances)

– Shaun Usher shared this letter, written by Sutherland to Gary Ross, director of The Hunger Games.

– This feature for 60 Minutes is just lovely. In particular, his response to his own performance in Don’t Look Now will stay with me (as does the original scene itself).

Thing 2 – Sound

Hours of fun for the whole family at the BBC Sound Effects archive.

Some of my favourites:

– the soundtrack to my life as purveyor of Dad Jokes: applause, small group of people, coupled with audience groans

– twangs made by wooden ruler

– man drinking bucket of cold cocoa

– indisposed chicken

Thing 3 – Automata

You will find no AI talk in this space (although you can read this if you like). But I was inevitably lured in by this, The Long Prehistory of Artificial Intelligence. Of course I was. I mean, it features not only this peacock fountain for handwashing (which does exactly the same thing as the new wave of hand washing stations in public conveniences, only 900 years ago and FUN)

but also Vaucanson’s infamous defecating duck.

Thing 4 – Shade

Planning a walk? Want to avoid the sun as much as possible? Or just interested to see how much shade a building or mountain or some other physical feature casts?

Shade Map is your friend.

Thing 5 – Pastels

Thanks to Jason Kottke for sharing this video about La Maison du Pastel.

If you’re tempted, here’s their shop. If I had the budget (and if I were any kind of artist) I might be drawn to the mother-of-pearl assortment or even the whole iridescent set (handy for drawing hummingbirds)

The full set (comprising 1,904 colours) will set you back €30,000 or so.

Once you’ve bought that, you’ll no doubt have a few grand left over for the world’s most expensive pencil.

Thing 6 – Reactions

Here, test your reaction time.

Six Things