Happy 89th Birthday, Ted Kotcheff! Born today in 1931 as William Theodore Kotcheff, (his given name being Velichko Todor Kostadin),this Bulgarian-Canadian film and television director and producer is known primarily for his work on British and American television productions.
These include the British television drama anthology series Armchair Theatre (1956–1974) and NBC's longest-running American primetime police procedural legal drama thriller mystery series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999–present).
As a filmmaker, Kotcheff is best known for directing the 1971 Australian drama/psychological thriller film 'Wake in Fright' (initially released as 'Outback' outside of Australia).
Based on Australian journalist, television documentary maker and novelist Kenneth Cook's eponymous 1961 novel, the film tells how, after finishing up the term in a remote outback town, young, middle-class schoolteacher John Grant (Gary Bond) looks forward to spending his Christmas holiday with his girlfriend in Sydney.
However, John gets waylaid in a nearby mining town mining town of Bundanyabba – known by the locals as "The Yabba" – where a gambling spree leaves him completely broke.
He later quickly falls in with the hard-drinking locals, who constantly ply him with alcohol and force him to participate in a gruesome kangaroo hunt. Disgusted, Grant tries to hitchhike out of town and, when that fails, begins to contemplate suicide.
Other notable features by Kotcheff include the 1982 American action/adventure film 'Rambo: First Blood' and the 1989 American comedy/dark comedy film 'Weekend at Bernie's'.
By the 1990s, 'Wake in Fright' had developed a cult reputation as Australia's great "lost film" because its master negative had gone missing, resulting in censored prints of degraded quality being used for its few television broadcasts and VHS release.
Kotcheff has been active from 1956–present.
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