Ted Kotcheff

William Theodore Kotcheff (born Velichko Todorov Tsochev, April 7, 1931) is a Bulgarian-Canadian film and television director and producer, known primarily for his work on several high-profile British and American television productions such as Armchair Theatre and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. He has also directed numerous successful films including the seminal Australian classic Wake in Fright, action films such as First Blood and Uncommon Valor, and comedies like Weekend at Bernie's, Fun with Dick and Jane, and North Dallas Forty. He is sometimes credited as William T. Kotcheff, and currently resides in Beverly Hills, California. 2Early life Kotcheff was born as Velichko Todoroff Tsotcheff in Toronto. His parents were Bulgarian immigrants. 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. 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 before in 1958 leaving Canada to live and work in the United Kingdom. He was inspired by his compatriot Sydney Newman, who had been the Director of Drama at the CBC and had moved to the U.K. to take up a similar position at ABC Television, one of the local 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, employed Kotcheff as a director of this series between 1958 and 196