Donald Sutherland's 'Pride'

Donald Sutherland has been one of Hollywood's most acclaimed actors for close to five decades. Now, the legendary actor is back on the big screen in an adaptation of Jane Austen's classic novel "Pride & Prejudice." He plays the father of five daughters and his wife desperately wants to marry them off.

"You have to understand, in that period, women were disenfranchised," Sutherland tells The Early Show co-anchor Hannah Storm. "They lost the right to inherit property. They had to get married. Otherwise, they had nothing. They were in the poor house."

The classic tale of love and misunderstanding unfolds in class-conscious England near the close of the 18th century. The five Bennet sisters are played by Keira Knightley, who takes the role of Elizabeth, or Lizzie; Rosamund Pike is Jane; Jena Malone is Lydia; Talulah Riley is Mary; and Carey Mulligan is Kitty.

His wife is two-time Academy Award nominee Brenda Blethyn, who Sutherland calls "exquisite." And notes the role of long-suffering husband is not the way he plays the part of Mr. Bennet.

"He's a husband who just adores and loves her. His life is built on having sex with her. It's just beautiful. Absolutely it is. It's just bliss."

Working with Knightly was also a wonderful experience, Sutherland says describing her as the "Marilyn Monroe of our time."

"She's way better than that even. She's a brilliant actress and a consummate actress and she's, what, 20, 21 years old," Sutherland says. "When you talk to her, she's so articulate and sensible, down to earth. And when you work with her, it's like working with a Zen Buddhist or something. She's so calm and rigorous and resourceful and obedient and creative — just wonderful. I mean, obedient in the sense that she does exactly what the director wants her to do."

The film also stars Simon Woods as Mr. Bingley and Matthew Macfadyen as Mr. Darcy.

Fast Facts About Donald Sutherland:

• Born in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada on July 17, 1935.
• He acquired British repertory stage experience and acted in several '60s horror films.
• He went on to play the anti-hero character parts in "The Dirty Dozen" in 1967, and "Kelly's Heroes" in 1970.
• Also in 1970, he portrayed the irreverent surgeon, Hawkeye Pierce, in Robert Altman's breakthrough feature, "M*A*S*H."
• In the '70s, landmark performances of anti-hero leads include the reserved detective, "Klute" (1971), opposite Jane Fonda (with whom he co-wrote, co-produced and co-starred in the 1972 anti-war film, "F.T.A"); Jesus Christ in Dalton Trumbo's "Johnny Got His Gun" (1971); and a doomed, death-obsessed parent in Nicolas Roeg's eerie "Don't Look Now" (1973);
• Sutherland was also memorable, if controversially cast, as "Fellini's Casanova" in 1975. And he brought a nearly palpable sense of paranoia and alienation to Philip Kaufman's remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" in 1978.
• In 1980 he took the concerned father role in Robert Redford's "Ordinary People."
• In the 1990s he became a familiar face in the small screen acting in high-toned TV-movies like his Emmy-winning turn as a Russian bureaucrat guiding a murder investigation in HBO's "Citizen X" in 1993. He was a doctor who forms a strong bond with a mentally challenged man who saves his life in "Behind the Mask" in 1999. He also offered a turn as a general in "The Hunley" in 1999.
• On the big screen, Sutherland was a South African schoolteacher whose conscience prods him into anti-apartheid activism in Euzhan Palcy's "A Dry White Season" in 1990.
• In 1991 he portrayed Colonel X in Oliver Stone's "JFK;" and a pyromaniac in "Backdraft." The following year, he was the mentor to Kristy Swanson's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
• In 1993 Sutherland offered a memorable turn as a high-class art dealer living an insecure lifestyle in "Six Degrees of Separation." Next, he was the veteran legalist who aides a younger lawyer in "A Time to Kill" in 1996, and track coach Bill Bowerman guiding long-distance runner Steve Prefontaine in "Without Limits" in 1998.
• In 2000 Sutherland took the role of a sex-minded over-the-hill astronaut in director Clint Eastwood's amusing "Space Cowboys." And he was also William H. Macy's hit man father in "Panic."
• In 2001 he took the role of Jimmy Burke in the TV movie "The Big Heist." He was also in the story of a Jewish revolt against the Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto in director Jon Avnet's "Uprising." The following year, he took the role of LBJ political advisor Clark Clifford in director John Frankenheimer's acclaimed HBO telepic "Path to War."
• In 2003 Sutherland enjoyed something of a career renaissance on the big screen. He took the role of a professional thief as Mark Wahlberg's mentor and Charlize Theron's father in the hit heist film remake "The Italian Job" and as Nicole Kidman's doting Southern dad in "Cold Mountain."
• In addition to "Pride & Prejudice," he will shortly be seen starring in Griffin Dunne's "Fierce People," opposite Diane Lane; Robert Edwards' "Land of the Blind," opposite Ralph Fiennes; Aric Avelino's "American Gun," opposite Sissy Spacek; James C.E. Burke's "Aurora Borealis," opposite Louise Fletcher and Juliette Lewis; and Robert Towne's "Ask the Dust," opposite Salma Hayek.
• He is currently at work on the new ABC dramatic series "Commander-in-Chief," in which he stars as the Speaker of the House opposite Geena Davis as the first female U.S. president.