About Ted Kotcheff
William Theodore Kotcheff (Bulgarian: Величко Тодоров Цочев, romanized: Velichko Todorov Tsochev; April 7, 1931 – April 10, 2025) was a Canadian director and producer of film, television, and theatre. He worked at various times in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He was known for having directed such films as the seminal Australian New Wave picture Wake in Fright (1971), the Mordecai Richler adaptations The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974) and Joshua Then and Now (1985), the original Rambo film First Blood (1982), and the comedies Fun with Dick and Jane (1977), North Dallas Forty (1979), and Weekend at Bernie's (1989). Kotcheff was nominated for a Genie Award for Best Achievement in Direction, a Gemini Award for Best Direction in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series, and twice for the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or. He won the Golden Bear at the 1974 Berlin International Film Festival for The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, and the British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series for his work on Play for Today. He received the Directors Guild of Canada's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011, and the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television's Board of Directors' Tribute Award in 2014. He was described by the Toronto International Film Festival as a "talented, multi-faceted journeyman director in the tradition of Leo McCarey or Robert Wise". == Early life == William Theodore Kotcheff was born in Toronto in 1931, into a family of Bulgarian immigrants. His father was born in Plovdiv, and his mother was of Macedonian Bulgarian background, from a Vambel, Ottoman Empire (present-day Greece), but grew up in Varna, Bulgaria. The family's original surname was 'Tsochev' (Bulgarian: Цочев), but was later anglicized to Kotcheff.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.