Weekend at Bernie’s Director Ted Kotcheff Dead at 94

The filmmaker who brought us movies like “Weekend at Bernie’s,” “First Blood,” and many others, Ted Kotcheff, passed away at the age of 94 due to heart complications in Mexico. His daughter shared this news with The Canadian Press. He had been residing in Mexico during his retirement with his wife, where he peacefully passed away surrounded by loved ones, as confirmed by his son, Thomas, to CBS Canada. Just a few days ago, he celebrated his 94th birthday. Dick Wolf, a close collaborator of Kotcheff on SVU, expressed his condolences on Variety, saying “Ted was an essential member of the SVU family for over 13 years. Besides being a talented producer and director, he was also a dear friend. I will miss him.

Across various genres such as the initial Rambo movie “First Blood” and Westerns like “Billy Two Hats”, director Kotcheff found himself at the helm. His journey in the entertainment industry began on Canadian public television broadcasting, later transitioning to the U.K. in 1958. In the UK, he was instrumental in producing the popular British anthology drama “Armchair Theatre” during its peak. The British comedy “Tiara Tahiti” marked his debut in cinema and ignited his career as a director. Following several television films, Kotcheff’s first feature film, “Wake in Fright”, from 1971, made its way to Cannes. This movie, representing Australia, was critically acclaimed and contributed significantly to the emergence of the Australian New Wave movement.

Upon arriving in Hollywood, Kotcheff’s career took off like a racehorse. During the ’80s, he experimented with various film genres in Hollywood – comedy with “Fun with Dick and Jane”, sports movie with “North Dallas Forty”, action film with “First Blood”, and then capped the decade with one of his most successful films, “Weekend at Bernie’s”. Later, he shifted back to television, serving as a long-term producer on “Law & Order: SVU” until 2012.

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2025-04-12 20:53