Canadian Ted Kotcheff, whose six-decade career as film and television director included helming the first instalments of two hit movie franchises in the 1980s, has died at age 94, his daughter confirmed to The Canadian Press.
During his career Kotcheff directed stars such as Jane Fonda, Burt Reynolds, Gregory Peck and Kathleen Turner, landing Hollywood jobs after years spent directing productions in Britain, Australia and Israel. In Canada, he directed two adaptations of novels by his former roommate Mordecai Richler — The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and Joshua Then and Now, both of which won domestic film awards.
But he was best known for his work in the 1980s. He directed 1982’s First Blood, the first of what would be five motion pictures featuring troubled Vietnam vet John Rambo, and seven years later was behind the lens for the improbable hit Weekend at Bernie’s, which saw two hapless underlings cart around the dead body of their boss as party guests carried on unawares.
“No matter what part of the world I travel to, there are two films of mine that seemingly everyone has seen: First Blood and Weekend at Bernie’s,” he wrote in his 2017 memoir, Director’s Cut: My Life in Film.
