Ted Kotcheff, Director of ‘First Blood’ and ‘Weekend at Bernie’s,’ Dies at 94

acclaimed filmmaker Ted Kotcheff, hailing from Canada, effortlessly traversed various movie genres, leaving his indelible mark on films like “The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz”, “First Blood”, and “Weekend at Bernie’s”. Regrettably, he passed away at the age of 94.

Kotcheff, who later worked for 13 seasons as an executive producer on the hard-hitting Dick Wolf show “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” passed away on Thursday, according to The Globe and Mail newspaper.

Kotcheff, who spent 13 years in a top role on the gritty Dick Wolf series “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” died on Thursday, as reported by The Globe and Mail.

The Globe and Mail reported that Kotcheff, who had a 13-year tenure as an executive producer on the tough Dick Wolf show “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” passed away on Thursday.

According to The Globe and Mail, Kotcheff, who was involved in the production of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” for 13 seasons, died on Thursday.

The Globe and Mail newspaper reported that Kotcheff, who spent 13 years as an executive producer on Dick Wolf’s hard-hitting series “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” passed away on Thursday.

The movie “The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz” from 1974, featuring Richard Dreyfuss as a sly young character, is often ranked among the top Canadian films ever produced. Additionally, Kotcheff directed another highly acclaimed film, the intense Australian thriller “Wake in Fright” (1971), which also made it to the list of top-tier movies from Australia.

Born in Toronto, this esteemed professional embarked on a 60-year journey in television direction that is widely respected. He was also the mastermind behind the social satire film “Fun With Dick and Jane” (1977) featuring George Segal and Jane Fonda, as well as the dark pro football drama “North Dallas Forty” (1979), starring Nick Nolte and Mac Davis. Additionally, he directed the action movie “Uncommon Valor” (1983), with Gene Hackman in the leading role.

Michael Kozoll, who later became a co-creator of “Hill Street Blues,” along with Kotcheff, had transformed David Morrell’s book into a movie script for Warner Bros. However, Warner Bros. declined the project. Orion Pictures then acquired it, and at Kotcheff’s recommendation, they hired Sylvester Stallone to portray John Rambo, a Green Beret veteran on a self-destructive mission.

Originally produced for approximately $16 million, the 1982 film First Blood went on to earn over $125 million globally (equivalent to about $317 million today). This success marked Sylvester Stallone’s first major hit following his role in Rocky, but unfortunately, director John Kotcheff had no involvement in any of the subsequent sequels.

In a 2016 interview with Filmmaker magazine, Kotcheff reminisced about being presented with the initial sequel script. After reading it, he commented, ‘In the original movie, his character didn’t kill anyone. In this one, he kills 75 people.’ He found it disturbing that the script appeared to glorify the Vietnam War, a conflict he deemed one of the most senseless in history.

Fifty-five thousand young Americans lost their lives, and many veterans took their own lives. It’s impossible for me to express such heartache through my art as I did in that piece. However, if I had made a sequel to it, it would have earned $300 million.

In a shift from his usual subjects, Kotcheff delved into a unique genre when he directed the humorous film titled “Weekend at Bernie’s” (1989). This movie revolves around two employees of an insurance firm (played by Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman), who try to deceive party guests into believing that their deceased, embezzling boss (Terry Kiser) is still alive.

Kotcheff also expressed reluctance about making another movie in the same series, as he felt he had exhausted all his ideas for “dead-man” humor.

Born on the 7th of April, 1931, during the Great Depression in Toronto, William Theodore Kotcheff hailed from parents of Bulgarian-Macedonian descent. Before earning his English literature degree from the University of Toronto, he had worked at a slaughterhouse and Goodyear Tire & Rubber.

1952 marked the beginning of Kotcheff’s career with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, right at the onset of the television era. Initially, he worked behind the scenes as a stagehand. At just 24 years old, he was later promoted to the position of the youngest drama director in the country.

In 1953, Kotcheff made his initial visit to New York City in the United States, primarily to watch Broadway plays. However, this trip ended abruptly when border agents arrested him following a betrayal by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who tipped off the FBI about a short-lived affiliation with a left-wing literary club.

After a brief imprisonment, being labeled as a communist, and being expelled from his homeland in 1957, Kotcheff felt compelled to leave and moved to London. In London, he spent over a decade working on television and theater productions.

Or, more concisely:

Expelled from his homeland as a communist in 1957, Kotcheff relocated to London where he directed TV and theater shows for over a decade.

Despite the unfortunate death of lead actor Gareth Jones during makeup application just moments before the scheduled airtime, Kotcheff successfully carried out the live 1958 teleplay set in an underground environment where a nuclear bomb detonated.

Working in such an improvised manner, tackling various topics, turned out to be beneficial for him. As he put it during a 2016 interview, “I produced an anthology series of one-hour plays. One week I’d be crafting a drama, the next a comedy, and then another time a historical play. It allowed me to identify my strengths.

Following the completion of “Life at the Top” by Kotcheff, which starred Laurence Harvey and Jean Simmons in 1965, Michelangelo Antonioni reached out seeking advice on trimming approximately 20 minutes from his film “Blow-Up”.

Kotcheff mentioned that he provided him with approximately 18 minutes’ worth of trimming advice, and it turned out that he implemented nearly every one of those tips.

In 1968, during a fundraising event against apartheid in South Africa held at Royal Albert Hall, a musician unintentionally ignited an American flag, causing further issues for Kotcheff with U.S. officials.

In his 2017 autobiography titled “Director’s Cut: My Life in Film“, he wrote, “Once a communist, now a flag desecrator!” Kotcheff mentioned that he was barred from re-entering the United States until 1972.

However, being qualified to work in Australia, Kotcheff directed the unsettling film “Wake in Fright.” This movie centers around a schoolteacher played by Gary Bond, who unintentionally finds himself stranded in the outback and confronts a rough-edged gang of heavy drinkers. During production, Kotcheff gave Peter Weir, who was still young at the time, permission to observe him.

Kotcheff took “Wake in Fright” to the Cannes Film Festival, where it was up for the prestigious Palme d’Or award. Unfortunately, the distributor faced financial troubles, causing the movie to vanish from cinemas and remain unseen for many years.

2009 saw him back on the Croisette for a grand premiere screening of the movie, which was introduced by Martin Scorsese. Roger Ebert described the film “Wake in Fright” as “powerfully intense, genuinely startling, and almost unbelievable.” It’s marketed as a ‘horror film,’ and indeed it has a lot of horror, but the horror depicted is all too human and painfully realistic.

In 1972, he received a BAFTA award for his direction of the film “Edna, the Inebriate Woman,” which was about a homeless woman and was produced by the BBC.

A year after returning to Canada, Kotcheff returned to direct the low-budget indie film titled “The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz“. In this production, Dreyfuss played the role of an ambitious son from a working-class Jewish family in Montreal. He faced difficulties casting his lead actor, but a suggestion from casting legend Lynn Stalmaster led him to Dreyfuss.

Immediately upon speaking, Richard was electrifying! He exhibited Duddy’s frenetic enthusiasm,” Kotcheff remarked.

As a gamer, I once found myself immersed in the world of Mordecai Richler’s novel “Duddy Kravitz,” which was brought to life on the silver screen by his one-time London roommate, Kotcheff. Together, we had also collaborated on “Life at the Top.” The movie, released in 1974, took home the prestigious Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and opened the doors for Kotcheff to follow in the footsteps of fellow Canadian filmmakers like Norman Jewison and Arthur Hiller, leading us both to Hollywood.

In his memoir, Kotcheff stated that ‘The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz‘ serves as the central point around which both my career and a significant part of my life have revolved.

1977 marked the debut of his first significant studio film in America, titled “Fun With Dick and Jane“. Following this, he continued with “Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? “, another comedy featuring Segal, in 1978. Lastly, in 1979, he wrote and directed “North Dallas Forty” as well.

His filmography also featured titles such as “Tiara Tahiti” from 1962, with James Mason in the lead role; the Western movie “Billy Two-Hats,” starring Gregory Peck and released in 1974; “Joshua Then and Now” (1985), an adaptation of a Richler novel that had James Woods as the main character; the comedy “Switching Channels” (1988) starring Burt Reynolds and Kathleen Turner; and “Winter People” from 1989, which counted Kurt Russell among its cast.

In the late ’90s, Wolf, an admirer of “North Dallas Forty” and “Duddy Kravitz,” proposed to Kotcheff the concept for a police series focusing on sex crimes and the underlying psychological aspects.

I was utterly puzzled by the link Dick made in his book between the existential struggles of a professional football player, a Jewish entrepreneur striving for success, and sex crimes in New York City. However, I didn’t see any reason to voice my confusion.

Law & Order: SVU transitioned Kotcheff from a director role to producing, where he brought on Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay as detectives Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson respectively. Notably, Hargitay penned the foreword for his book.

In one of my conversations, I recall being told by my assistant that I’d auditioned a staggering 27,000 performers for the show SVU. “I’ve practically tapped into every talent New York has to offer,” Kotcheff stated, leaving me in awe.

The NBC drama brought back memories of his initial days in live TV, where he and his team were constantly racing against time to meet tight deadlines during production. Notably, he oversaw the direction of seven episodes, among which was the 100th episode of the show. In this particular episode, the police force was on a hunt for an individual who had brutally mutilated another man by removing his genitals and abandoning them in an empty subway station.

For thirteen seasons and over 280 episodes, I helmed SVU as its producer, right up until 2012. Nearly six decades since embarking on my journey in the world of television at the CBC in Toronto, I took my leave from the show. In retrospect, it was undeniably one of the most rewarding – and without a doubt, the longest uninterrupted – chapters of my professional life. These were words I penned down myself.

His wife, Sylvia Kay, died in January 2019 at age 82. She had appeared in Wake in Fright.

A film chronicling the life of Ted Kotcheff, titled “The Apprenticeship of Ted Kotcheff“, with narration by Dreyfuss, is currently being developed.

2025-04-11 23:26

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