BREAKING: Legendary actor Donald Sutherland dead at 88

"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," he wrote.

Sutherland has been in over 200 shows and films. He was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, to Dorothy Isobel Sutherland and Frederick McLea Sutherland in 1935. His death comes after a long illness.

He is well known for his roles in Robert Altman's M.A.S.H, Pride & Prejudice, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Hunger Games, and Jules Feiffer's Little Murders, among others. In both M.A.S.H. and Little Murders, he starred opposite Elliott Gould.

Sutherland, who was never nominated for an Oscar, was given an honorary Oscar in 2017 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. At the time, he told 60 Minutes of inspiration "I don’t find it. It finds me. I mean, I will read it. And suddenly, it starts churning around inside me. And, then, it gets violent. And, then, it gets loving. And it’s an extraordinary thing. It gets more and more and more exciting. It’s delicious."

Of M.A.S.H., a monumental film of the Vietnam War era, Sutherland said "It showed the concept of war without showing war."

"When you are in a field station like we were, it is insane to watch human bodies come flying into a camp that are wrecked for no reason at all. That kind of insanity created an environment, a kind of mini-society, that was in chaos. To a lot of people, that represents a kind of society that we have today," he said in the 1970 interview.

An outpouring of love from fans poured in on social media after the announcement of his passing. Many posted clips from films with their favorite Sutherland roles.