Ted Kotcheff, ‘First Blood’ and ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ director, dies at 94

Prolific Canadian-born filmmaker Ted Kotcheff, who directed the films “First Blood,” “Weekend at Bernie’s,” “Wake in Fright,” “The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz,” “Fun With Dick and Jane” and “North Dallas Forty,” in addition to a long run as an executive producer on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” during a 60-year career, has died. He was 94.

Kotcheff’s daughter Kate Kotcheff said via email that he died peacefully while under sedation Thursday night in a hospital in Nuevo Nayarit, Mexico.

In a 1975 interview with The Times, Kotcheff said, “The sense of being outside of the mainstream of the community has always attracted me. All my pictures deal with people outside or people who don’t know what’s driving them.”

Sylvester Stallone as John Rambo in 1982’s “First Blood,” directed by Ted Kotcheff.

(CBS Photo Archive / CBS via Getty Images)

Born in Toronto on April 7, 1931, to Bulgarian immigrants, Kotcheff began working in television in the early 1950s. He later moved to the U.K., directing for both stage and TV. In 1971, he directed “Wake in Fright” in Australia, which a Times review upon its 2012 rerelease called “raw, unsettling and mesmerizing.”

Returning to Canada in the early 1970s, Kotcheff directed 1974’s adaptation of Mordecai Richler’s “The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz” starring Richard Dreyfuss. It won the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival and earned writer Lionel Chetwynd an Academy Award nomination for adapted screenplay.

Kotcheff found huge success in Hollywood with 1982’s “First Blood,” which introduced the traumatized Vietnam veteran John Rambo, played by Sylvester Stallone.

Reviewing “First Blood,” Times critic Sheila Benson wrote, “This violent and disturbing film is exceptionally well made.” She added, “If it is possible to dislike and admire a film in almost equal measure, then ‘First Blood’ would win on that split ticket. … Kotcheff has seared so many lingering examples of exultant nihilism into our brains that words to the contrary are so much sop. It’s action, not words, that makes ‘First Blood’ run, and the action is frightening, indeed.”

Andrew McCarthy, left, and Jonathan Silverman in a scene from Ted Kotcheff’s “Weekend at Bernie‘s” (1989).

(Phil Caruso / 20th Century Fox)

If “First Blood” tapped into the despair and anxiety of post-Vietnam America, 1989’s “Weekend at Bernie’s” became an unlikely cultural touchstone for its carefree, freewheeling playfulness, displaying Kotcheff’s versatility.

The film follows two ambitious young men (played by Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman) who create a series of elaborate ruses over the course of a hectic weekend to prove that their sketchy boss (Terry Kiser) actually isn’t dead. In a review of “Bernie’s,” Times critic Kevin Thomas wrote, “A weekend among the rich, the jaded and the corrupt is just the right cup of tea for an acid social satirist such as Kotcheff,” also noting the filmmaker’s small cameo in the film as father to one of the young men.

Eventually Kotcheff returned to television, working for more than 10 years and on nearly 300 episodes of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.”

In 2011, Kotcheff received a lifetime achievement award from the Directors Guild of Canada. He published a memoir, “Director’s Cut: My Life in Film,” in 2017.

Kotcheff is survived by his wife Laifun Chung; brother Tim; children Aaron, Kate, Joshua, Alexandra and Thomas; and grandchildren Isabella, Dante, Dorian and Elsie. He is predeceased by his first wife, actor Sylvia Kay, and granddaughter Matilda. A private funeral took place in Mexico and a memorial will be held at a later date.