A Look Back at Late Actor Donald Sutherland’s Groundbreaking Role as Hawkeye in ‘M*A*S*H’ [Photos]

Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould Shared the Screen

Here’s a look back at Donald’s time on the M*A*S*H set, including this famous golfing scene with Elliott Gould. Elliott played Trapper John McIntyre in the film.

Candid Moment

The onscreen duo spent time talking behind the scenes of this film, seen in this candid shot.

The Film Led to the TV Series

After the M*A*S*H film was a smash success, Alan Alda portrayed the character of Hawkeye in the 1972 television series also titled M*A*S*H.

Why ‘M*A*S*H’ Worked

Donald once explained why he believed the M*A*S*H film worked so well in a video posted on CBC’s Facebook page.

“M*A*S*H has done well because it has somehow, in its own specific, managed to catch the general trend of everyone in North America and in France too and in England,” he said. “It’s also a new thing in film. Most of the work in the film is improvised.”

A Deeper Meaning

“Intellectually, it projected the feelings of an awful lot of people about an awful lot of things. It showed the concept of war without showing war,” the late actor added of the film. “In other words, in M*A*S*H, war is like that. It is a solid circular thing which is volatile and has a lot of activity but the picture, the film that we make, surrounded that. You didn’t see any of that.”

Making People Laugh Was Important

Donald further explained what it was like to be part of the dark war comedy.

“All you saw was what was thrown off from this volatile mass. You got the debris. When you are abstracted from a situation, any emotional situation and you sit and watch two people argue, the people involved in the argument are very involved in the argument and believe it,” he added of the film’s dynamic nature. “But you sit away from it and watch them. It is totally absurd to watch two people fighting. When you are in a field station, like we were in, it is insane to watch human bodies flying into a camp which are wrecked for no reason at all. And so that kind of insanity creates an environment, a kind of mini society that was in chaos and this, to a lot of people, represents the kind of society that we have today.”

At the end of the video, he added that the film also did well “because it was funny.”

“If you can’t be funny, you’re in a lot of trouble,” he said with a smile.