Donald Sutherland Remembered, Linda Thompson Returns

Greg Mitchell is the author of more than a dozen books (see link) and now writer/director of three award-winning films aired via PBS, including “Atomic Cover-up” and “Memorial Day Massacre” (recently nominated for an Emmy). You can still subscribe to this newsletter for free.

Okay, another quickie today.

First, as you no doubt know by now, word has emerged that actor Donald Sutherland has died at 88. You can find dozens of personal tributes and anecdotes on social media from those who worked with him. You might recall his key role in the Kate Bush “Cloudbusting” video.

Now let me add my very little note here.

About fifty years ago, I interviewed Sutherland (and a bunch of Army vets in NYC) for anarticle about the antiwar/resistance movement emerging from U.S military bases and GI coffeehouses as our war in Vietnam seemed to have no end in sight. Included in our chat were early plans for his coming adventure with Jane Fonda—they had just starred in “Klute” and struck up a romantic relationship— in what would be known as the “FTA” tour. That’s Fuck the Army, folks.

This music/comedy sketch revue hit theaters and coffeehouses near U.S. military bases as Vietnam horrors still raged. In some places, the Army brass shut it down. Of course, the organizers would film it all with the aim of releasing it widely in July 1972.

On the one hand, the time seemed ripe: George McGovern was riding antiwar fervor to the Democratic nomination for president. Now for the bad news: Jane had recently returned from Hanoi and was getting slammed by politicians and media of all stripes, with boycotts of her future work threatened. I attended a press conference in New York City when Jane tried to explain her trip and warned of U.S. plans to possibly bomb dikes in North Vietnam, and then faced hostile questioning from the press. I met her there as Peter Knobler interviewed Fonda for a major (sympathetic) profile for our magazine Crawdaddy.

Anyway, after that, and with Nixon still riding high, the film doc got pulled from theaters after a week or so and disappeared. Fortunately, I had attended a screening by then and, as I recall, found the film rather scattered and the many comedy skits not so funny—despite a co-writing credit by none other than Dalton Trumbo! But there were a lot of brief interviews with the soldiers, many of them back from Vietnam or heading there.

In any case, not long ago a new restored version of the film arrived. Kino’s CEO boasts, “The world will now finally rediscover or more aptly discover a long suppressed document of a critical time in American history.” That’s the trailer below. Sutherland would go on to roles in a hundred more films—among my favorites, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”—and TV episodes, while often displaying his political activism. Amazingly, the character he would play most often, in three films/TV movies, was famed Canadian surgeon/Communist Norman Bethune, what a life story unknown to most Americans.

On a happier note, The New York Times today finally got to Linda Thompson and her new album which has maybe the year’s best parody title and cover photo (hello, Bryan Ferry), “Proxy Music.” It’s been hailed in the UK for days now. I was an original Richard and Linda Thompson fan going back half a century, and for several years now she has been one of my favorite Facebook buds—so I know how hysterically funny she can be. Some of that is shown in the new Times article.

Of course, as fans know, she suffers from dysphonia, which hampered her singing for many years and has finally prevented her from recording at all, a real shame since she has been one of our finest from the start. But, presto, this only encouraged/inspired her to write more songs, and the new album features a new batch though with guest artists doing the singing, including son Teddy Thompson, Rufus Wainwright and other friends. So below, a sampling of Linda’s vocals in the past, and her songs from today.

Live at peak with Richard, “A Heart Needs a Home”

In 2002, with son Teddy, on her great “All I See,” struggling with and defeating dysphonia in this case.

From the new album, Teddy singing, with another musical family in title, “Those Damn Roches”

Rufus singing, “Darling This Will Never Do”