Kiefer Sutherland once skipped a lead role to go skiing
Before Jack Bauer made him television's best-paid actor, Kiefer Sutherland was a teen vampire and a bully in Stand by Me. He also turned down the lead in My Own Private Idaho without reading the script because he wanted a ski trip, a choice he later called part of a really dumb plan.
London's Paddington district is where Sutherland arrived on 21 December 1966, at St Mary's Hospital, the son of the Canadian actors Donald Sutherland and Shirley Douglas; his twin sister Rachel works in film post-production. His maternal grandfather, Tommy Douglas, led Saskatchewan and is widely credited with bringing universal health care to Canada. His first name honours Warren Kiefer, who directed Donald in his first feature. After his parents split, he moved with his mother to Toronto in 1975 and passed through a long string of schools there.
His first lead, as Donald Campbell in the Canadian drama The Bay Boy, earned a Genie nomination and carried him to Hollywood. Rob Reiner's Stand by Me (1986) was his first American film, and Joel Schumacher cast him as the vampire David in The Lost Boys a year later, beginning a partnership that later took in Flatliners and Phone Booth. Early on he shared a flat with Robert Downey Jr. for three years, and he played a junior officer under Jack Nicholson's colonel in A Few Good Men.
The part that defined him arrived in 2001. As counter-terrorism agent Jack Bauer on Fox's 24, he collected four Emmy nominations before winning in 2006 for the fifth season, and a 2006 deal worth 40 million dollars for three seasons made him the highest-paid actor on television. When West Point's dean, Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, asked the producers in 2007 to cut the torture scenes, Sutherland agreed to tell cadets that torturing prisoners is wrong, and he has always described the show as entertainment.
Later work included the Fox drama Touch, the role of President Tom Kirkman in ABC's Designated Survivor, and the face and voice of Big Boss in two Metal Gear Solid V games. His highest-grossing film is the animated Monsters vs. Aliens. He has stars on Canada's Walk of Fame, joining both parents, and on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Source: Kiefer Sutherland
