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Ted Kotcheff was born Toronto, Canada and attended Runnymede Collegiate Institute. After graduation in English Literature at the University of Toronto, he began his professional career directing TV drama at age 24 at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He was the youngest director in the CBC.

After two years at the CBC, he went to live and work in England, directing in television and the theatre. He twice won the British Emmy for Best Director, the second time for an extraordinary docudrama about a female derelict entitled, Edna, the inebriate Woman. The film also won the Best Actress and Best Script Award. Ted Kotcheff's television work in Great Britain was part of the new wave of working class actors and drama that changed the British theatre and television in the late 1950's. His stage successes include the long running Lionel Bart musical, MAGGIE MAY.

His film career started in England: TIARA TAHITI, a social comedy starring James Mason and John Mills; LIFE AT THE TOP, starring Laurence Harvey and Jean Simmons; TWO GENTLEMEN SHARING, starring Robin Phillips, a film set in the West Indian community of London and dealing with relationships between black and white. TWO GENLEMEN SHARING was the official British entry at the Venice Film Festival. His next film, OUTBACK was made in Australia. It was the Australian entry in the Cannes Film Festival and many Australians still think it is the finest Australian film ever made and the beginning of the renaissance of the Australian cinema.

Ted Kotcheff then returned to Canada in 1972 to make a film of a novel written by his best friend, Mordecai Richler, THE APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ. This film, thought to be one of the best Canadian films ever made, won the Golden Bear First Prize at the Berlin Film Festival and numerous other awards including an Academy Award nomination for best script. Ted has also directed FUN WITH DICK AND JANE, starring Jane Fonda and George Segal; SOMEONE IS KILLING THE GREAT CHEFS OF EUROPE, starring Jackie Bisset and George Segal; NORTH DALLAS FORTY which also wrote and starring Nick Nolte (a film considered to be one of the best every made about professional sports); FIRST BLOOD, starring Sylvester Stallone (one of the biggest box office winners of all time); UNCOMMON VALOR, starring Gene Hackman; and WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S.

In the mid-1980's, Kotcheff made a film of another Mordecai Richler novel, JOSHUA THEN AND NOW. This film, starring James Woods and Alan Arkin, was the official Canadian entry in the Cannes Film Festival. In 2002, the AV Preservation Trust of Canada declared THE APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ to be Masterwork of Canadian cinema. Presently, he is working in New York as the executive Producer of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.