Canadian television Kotcheff began his television career at the age of twenty-four when he joined the staff of the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, with television in its infancy. Kotcheff was the youngest director on the staff of the CBC, where he worked for two years on shows such as
General Motors Theatre,
Encounter,
First Performance and
On Camera.
British television In 1957, he left Canada to live and work in the United Kingdom. He was soon followed by his compatriot
Sydney Newman, who had been the Director of Drama at the CBC and then to the United Kingdom to take up a similar position at
ABC Weekend TV, one of the franchise holders of the
ITV network who also produced much of the nationally networked programming for the channel. At ABC, Newman was producer of the popular
Armchair Theatre anthology drama programme, on which Kotcheff worked as a director between 1957 and 1960. Kotcheff was responsible for directing some of the best-remembered instalments. During
Underground, transmitted live on November 30, 1958, Kotcheff was required to cope when one of the actors,
Gareth Jones, playing a character who was to die of a heart attack, suddenly died of one himself, off-camera, while between scenes, leaving
Peter Bowles and others to improvise. More successfully, Kotcheff directed the following year's
No Trams to Lime Street by Welsh playwright
Alun Owen. He also did
Hour of Mystery, ''I'll Have You to Remember
(1961) by Clive Exton, and episodes of BBC Sunday-Night Play, ITV Television Playhouse, Espionage, First Night, ABC Stage 67, Drama 61-67 and ITV Playhouse''.
Theatre Kotcheff also worked in the theatre. He directed the original 1964–65
West End production of the musical
Maggie May at the
Adelphi Theatre, which won the
Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Score of the Year and the Critics' Poll as Best New British Musical.
British feature films Kotcheff made his first film with
Tiara Tahiti (1962). He directed other features during the decade, including
Life at the Top (1965) and
Two Gentlemen Sharing (1969). He also directed
The Human Voice (1967) for British television, starring
Ingrid Bergman from a story by
Jean Cocteau and TV remakes of
The Desperate Hours (1967) and
Of Mice and Men (1968). He directed the concert
At the Drop of Another Hat for TV. Kotcheff directed the Australian film ''
Wake in Fright It won much critical acclaim in Europe, and was Australia's entry at the
Cannes Film Festival. (In 2009,
Wake in Fright was re-released on DVD and Blu-ray disc in a fully restored version.) Kotcheff returned to television, directing the
Play for Today production
Edna, the Inebriate Woman (1971) 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.
Return to Canada Kotcheff returned home to Canada, where he directed an adaptation of his friend and one-time housemate
Mordecai Richler's novel
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974) which won the
Golden Bear at the
Berlin Film Festival making it the first English Canadian dramatic feature film to win an international award. In 1975 the movie won the
Canadian Film Awards' belated
Film of the Year award (as the 1974 ceremony was not held). The film has since been recognized as a classic of Canadian cinema, with the
Toronto International Film Festival ranking it in the
Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time twice, in 1984 and 1993. He wrote and directed
The Trial of Sinyavsky and Daniel (1975) for Canadian television and was a production consultant on
Why Shoot the Teacher? (1977).
Hollywood In Hollywood, he directed
Fun with Dick and Jane (1977) which was a big hit. He followed it with the comedy
Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? (1978) then wrote and directed
North Dallas Forty (1979) which was critically acclaimed. Kotcheff directed the Canadian film
Split Image (1982), then had his biggest success to date with the
Sylvester Stallone movie
First Blood (1982), the first in the
Rambo series. (He speaks about the ideas behind this film in
Andrea Luka Zimmerman's 2017 film
Erase and Forget.) Kotcheff then worked on another Vietnam-themed action movie
Uncommon Valor (1983), then returned to Canada to make
Joshua Then and Now (1985), from the novel by
Mordecai Richler. Kotcheff directed
Switching Channels (1988) and
Winter People (1989), then had a big hit with ''
Weekend at Bernie's'' (1989).
Television In the 1990s, Kotcheff returned to directing for TV, working on various American series such as
Red Shoe Diaries, and
Buddy Faro as well as
Casualty in the UK. He did the occasional feature film such as
Folks! (1992) and
The Shooter (1995). He did TV movies like
What Are Families for? (1993),
Love on the Run (1994),
Family of Cops (1995),
A Husband, a Wife and a Lover (1996),
Borrowed Hearts (1997),
Cry Rape (1999). He joined the staff of
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, where he worked as an executive producer and director through 2012. ==Personal life==