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Ted Kotcheff, the Canadian filmmaker who introduced moviegoers to Sylvester Stallone’s traumatized Vietnam War veteran John Rambo with “First Blood” and helmed comedies like “Weekend at Bernie’s,” “Fun With Dick and Jane” and “The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz,” died Thursday. He was 94.
His death was confirmed by his family to Canadian publication The Globe and Mail.
After beginning his career in Canadian television and working in the U.K. industry, Kotcheff broke through, first with the Australian thriller “Wake in Fright,” then with his 1974 feature “The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz,” a Canada-produced adaptation of Mordechai Richler’s 1959 coming-of-age novel starring then-rising star Richard Dreyfuss. The film took home the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and earned an Academy Award nomination for best adapted screenplay (for Richler and Lionel Chetwynd), launching Kotcheff’s career in the American film industry. In later years, Kotcheff worked in the Dick Wolf realm as a producer and director on “Law & Order: SVU.”
“Ted was an integral part of the SVU family for over 13 years. He was not only a great producer and director, he was also a close friend. I will miss him,” Wolf said of Kotcheff.
In Hollywood, Kotcheff turned in box office hits like the 1977 marital satire “Fun With Dick and Jane,” starring George Segal and Jane Fonda, and the 1979 football insider drama “North Dallas Forty,” starring Nick Nolte. But his most enduring feature came in 1982, teaming with Sylvester Stallone for “First Blood,” a vital, Hobermanian post-Vietnam freakout about a tortured, war-rattled soldier that brings guerrilla warfare to the homefront after being bullied by local cops in a quiet Pacific Northwest town.
Though far more haunted and less spectacle-oriented than its gun-toting poster would indicate, “First Blood” minted Stallone (who also co-wrote the screenplay) as an American action icon and gave the star another iconic character, alongside Rocky Balboa, to return to through his career. The film also marked Kotcheff’s largest commercial triumph, ranking as the 13th-highest-grossing release of its year and launching a veritable action franchise with four more entries, including one recently released in 2019.
Describing the ethos of his filmography to Variety in 2014, Kotcheff evoked Anton Chekhov and said that “I am not the judge of my characters, and that became part of my artistic credo. That’s how I approach all of my characters.”
After directing another Vietnam-concerned feature with 1983’s “Uncommon Valor,” produced by John Milius and starring Gene Hackman, Kotcheff returned to comedies and notched another hit with 1989’s “Weekend at Bernie’s,” starring Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman as two low-level suits who puppet their CEO’s corpse. It was a memorable premise that even spawned an inexplicable 1993 sequel, stretching the science of decomposing corpses.
Born in Toronto, Ontario on April 7, 1931, Kotcheff was a musician from an early age and practiced violin as a child. He graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in English literature before joining the Canadian Broadcasting Company in the ’50s and directing television dramas. He relocated to the U.K. to pursue filmmaking opportunities, where he made his directorial debut in 1962 with the comedy “Tiara Tahiti,” starring a then-50-something James Mason.
During this time, Kotcheff married British actress Sylvia Kay in 1960. The two had three children before divorcing in 1972. Kotcheff later married again, to Laifun Chun, who would serve as a producing partner on some projects. The pair had two children, Thomas and Alexandra.
Though Kotcheff’s filmmaking pace slowed in the ’90s (he never directed a theatrical feature after the turn of the century), he shifted to regular work in television, directing TV movies and serving as an executive producer and director of NBC’s “Law & Order: SVU” for more than a decade. In 2011, he was awarded the lifetime achievement award by the Director Guild of Canada.
