William Kotcheff

William Theodore Kotcheff (born April 7, 1931) is a Bulgarian-Canadian film and television director, writer and producer, known primarily for his work on British and American television productions such as ''Armchair Theatre'' and '' Law & Order: Special Victims Unit''. He directed numerous successful films including the Australian ''Wake in Fright'' (1971), action films such as the original ''Rambo'' movie '' First Blood'' (1982) and '' Uncommon Valor'' (1983), and comedies like '' Fun with Dick and Jane'' (1977), ''North Dallas Forty'' (1979), and ''Weekend at Bernie's'' (1989).

He is sometimes credited as William T. Kotcheff, and resides in Beverly Hills, California. Due to his ancestry, Kotcheff has Bulgarian citizenship.

Early life

Kotcheff's name was registered in official documents as ''William Theodore Kotcheff'' in Toronto, where he was born into a family of Bulgarian immigrants, who changed their last name from ''Tsochev'' ( bg, link=no, Цочев) to ''Kotcheff'' for convenience. His father was born in Plovdiv, while his mother was of Macedonian Bulgarian background, from Vambel, today in Greece, but grew up in Varna, Bulgaria.

Career

Canadian television

After graduating in English Literature from University College, University of Toronto, Kotcheff began his television career at the age of twenty-four when he joined the staff of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, with television still very much in its infancy in the country. 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 1958, 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 U.K. 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 as 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 in the series. During ''Underground'', transmitted live on 30 November 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 also 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'', ''ITV Television Playhouse'', ''Espionage'', ''First Night'', ''ABC Stage 67'', ''Drama 61-67'' and ''ITV Playhouse''.

Theatre

Kotcheff also worked in the theatre.

British feature films

Kotcheff made his first feature film with ''Tiara Tahiti'' (1962). He went on to direct 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 a concert for TV, ''At the Drop of Another Hat''.

Kotcheff directed the Australian film ''Wake in Fright'' (USA: ''Outback'', 1971; re-released with its original title, 2012). 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
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