24 Facts About Ted Kotcheff

William Theodore Kotcheff was a Canadian-Bulgarian director and producer of film, television, and theatre.

Ted Kotcheff worked at various times in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Ted Kotcheff 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.

Ted Kotcheff was described by the Toronto International Film Festival as a "talented, multi-faceted journeyman director in the tradition of Leo McCarey or Robert Wise".

William Theodore Ted Kotcheff was born in Toronto in 1931, the son into a family of Bulgarian immigrants.

Ted Kotcheff's father was born in Plovdiv, and his mother was of Macedonian Bulgarian background, from a Vambel, Ottoman Empire, but grew up in Varna, Bulgaria.

Ted Kotcheff saw no difference between Macedonian and Bulgarian, seeing both communities as one and the same.

Ted Kotcheff served on the board of directors of the Macedonian Arts Council.

Ted Kotcheff studied at University College, Toronto, graduating with a degree in English Literature in 1952.

Ted 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.

Ted 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.

Ted Kotcheff was 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 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 Ted Kotcheff worked as a director between 1957 and 1960.

Ted Kotcheff was responsible for directing some of the best-remembered instalments.

Ted Kotcheff directed other features during the decade, including Life at the Top and Two Gentlemen Sharing.

Ted Kotcheff directed The Human Voice for British television, starring Ingrid Bergman from a story by Jean Cocteau and TV remakes of The Desperate Hours and Of Mice and Men.

Ted Kotcheff directed the concert At the Drop of Another Hat for TV.

Ted Kotcheff returned to television, directing the Play for Today production Edna, the Inebriate Woman for the BBC, which won him a British Academy Television Award for Best Director.

Ted 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 which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival making it the first English Canadian dramatic feature film to win an international award.

Ted Kotcheff worked on another Vietnam-themed action movie Uncommon Valor, then returned to Canada to make Joshua Then and Now, from the novel by Mordecai Richler.

Ted Kotcheff lived in Beverly Hills with his wife Laifun.

Ted Kotcheff had three children from his previous marriage to actress Sylvia Kay: Aaron, Katrina and Joshua.

In February 2016, Kotcheff applied for Bulgarian citizenship via the Bulgarian consulate in Los Angeles, and was granted this during a visit to Bulgaria in March.

Ted Kotcheff died from heart failure in Nuevo Vallarta, Nayarit, Mexico, on April 10,2025, three days after his 94th birthday.