Canadian director Ted Kotcheff was born William Theodore Kotcheff in Toronto of Bulgarian descent, the son of immigrants from the region of Macedonia. After graduating with a degree in English Literature from University College, University of Toronto, Kotcheff started working in live television at the age of 21. He became one of the youngest directors at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Productions included drama, comedy, and historical plays. 

 

In 1958 Ted left Canada and went to England, directing both television and theatre as well as beginning his feature film career. Kotcheff was inspired by his compatriot Sydney Newman, who had been the Director of Drama at the CBC. Ted directed some of the best-remembered installments in the Armchair Theatre anthology series from 1958 to 1964. During “Underground”, which transmitted live, Kotcheff had to cope with one of the actors suddenly dying between two of his scenes. The following year Ted directed “No Trams to Lime Street”. He then went on to direct several well-received dramas for ABC, including a small screen remake of "The Desperate Hours" (1967), about a family held hostage by three escaped convicts, “The Human Voice" (1967), which featured Ingrid Bergman in a solo performance, and a 1968 rendition of "Of Mice and Men" starring George Segal.

 

Kotcheff directed his first feature film, TIARA TAHITI, in 1962, using his full name William T. Kotcheff. Despite an engaging premise about rival hotel owners in Tahiti and a cast including James Mason and John Mills, TIARA TAHITI was not a major success. Kotcheff made up for this setback with his next British film, LIFE AT THE TOP (1963), the cynical sequel to 1959's ROOM AT THE TOP. In his next film, OUTBACK (1971), Kotcheff took cast and crew to Australia for the fascinating tale of a schoolteacher's experience with a primitive Australian tribe.  After its release, directors Fred Schepisi, Bruce Beresford, Peter Weir and others approached Kotcheff stating that OUTBACK, now called WAKE IN FRIGHT, was the film that inspired them and made them think, “Yes, we can make great films here”. Ever since, they have attributed the beginning of what is called the renaissance of the Australian film industry to Ted’s film.  Kotcheff returned to television, directing EDNA, THE INEBRIATE WOMAN for the BBC, which won him a British Academy Television Award for Best Director. In 2000, the play was voted one of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes of the 20th century in a poll of industry professionals conducted by the British Film Institute. 

 

Returning to Canada to direct THE APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ, the Canadian film industry finally scored a hit. The freewheeling tale of a Jewish lad (played by a pre-star Richard Dreyfuss) aggressively climbing up the social ladder in mid-'40s Montreal. The film won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, making it the first Canadian film to win an international award. Though based on a Mordecai Richler novel, it was the most autobiographical of Kotcheff's works. DUDDY KRAVITZ also represented the first true box-office hit to emanate from Canada since the silent era. Between this film and Kotcheff's next adaptation of Richler, 1985's JOSHUA THEN AND NOW, the director bided his time in less personal, more commercial-minded efforts, including FUN WITH DICK AND JANE (1977), WHO IS KILLING THE GREAT CHEFS OF EUROPE? (1978), NORTH DALLAS FORTY (1979) and the biggest Rambo film, FIRST BLOOD (1982), which introduced the signature role of Rambo to Sylvester Stallone. 

 

Since JOSHUA THEN AND NOW, Ted Kotcheff's career has boomed, but his "signature" as a director has been less recognizable in such efforts as SWITCHING CHANNELS (1988) (the most recent remake of THE FRONT PAGE) with Kathleen Turner and Burt Reynolds. He scored a surprise success with the modest comedy WEEKEND AT BERNIE’S (1989), in which Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman are bumbling accountants trying to keep the ruse that their boss is alive. Ted’s film FOLKS! (1992) was less successful, but did star Tom Selleck trying to deal with the senility of his father who was played by luminary Don Ameche.

 

Kotcheff also found success on the small screen, helming episodes of Showtime's erotic series "Red Shoe Diaries" as well as the 1997 TV-movie "Borrowed Hearts", starring Roma Downey and Eric McCormack. Kotcheff then directed several other films including "Family of Cops", in which police chief Charles Bronson coped with an arrest in his own brood and the movie "A Husband, a Wife, and a Love" with Judith Light. Ted was an executive producer of “Law & Order: SVU”, guiding the top-rated series through 284 episodes and into its thirteenth hit season.

 

Most critically acclaimed is Ted’s movie, WAKE IN FRIGHT (OUTBACK), which was screened in official competition at Cannes in 1971. The film almost disappeared into obscurity, lost forever, until original editor Anthony Buckley embarked on an odyssey to bring it back to life. His investigations, starting in 1996, revealed that original source materials were missing and a 35 mm print uncovered in Dublin was of too poor quality to restore. He finally found an original print slated for disposal in a vault in Pittsburgh, a fluke of a discovery that enabled a digitally reinvigorated version of WAKE IN FRIGHT to be given an Australian cinematic rerelease in 2009. Restored by the Australia's National Film and Sound Archive and AtLab Deluxe, this provided a new generation of curious cinephiles the opportunity to enjoy this masterpiece. Now, a film treasure, in 2009, WAKE IN FRIGHT was declared a "Cannes Classic", which was screened again as part of that year's retrospective program. It is one of only two movies to hold this "Cannes Classic" distinction!

 

Ted and Canadian writer Mordecai Richler were longtime friends and collaborators. Two of their more prominent collaborations included THE APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITS and JOSHUA THEN AND NOW. Richler’s award winning novel, Barney’s Version, was adapted into a feature in 2010. Barney meets the love of his life (Rosamund Pike) at his wedding - but she is not the bride. Directed by Richard J Lewis and produced by Robert Lantos, BARNEY’S VERSION features many of Richler's friends, colleagues, and fans in cameo appearances. Ted appears in a cameo as the train conductor during Barney's first declaration of love to Miriam. 

 

In 2012, the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television undertook the digital restoration of THE APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ. Four decades later, many people regard THE APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ as the best English-language movie in the history of Canadian cinema. It took nearly 40 years, but the film finally screened at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival to great fanfare, and the Toronto-born Kotcheff was present to bask in the accolades. Following this, the Director’s Guild of Canada awarded Kotcheff their Lifetime Achievement Award.

 

Kotcheff has successfully mastered film, television, comedy and tragedy. Few can follow.

 

 

“Everything about filmmaking tries to distract you from that first fine rapturous vision you have of the film.”  - Ted Kotcheff