Ted Kotcheff, the director of the first « Rambo » with Sylvester Stallone died

The Canadian director Ted Kotcheffwho ranged among the genres to direct successful films such as « Rambo », « Brothers in the night », « Someone is killing the greatest chefs in Europe » And « Husband change »died on Thursday 10 April, three days after his 94th birthday.

The news of the disappearance was first published by the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail. The death was then confirmed to the Los Angeles Times by his daughter Kate Kotcheff specifying that the father « He went out serenely » While under sedation in a hospital in Nuevo Nayarit, Mexico.

The fame of the director is linked to the international success of « First Blood » (1982), film arrived in Italy with the title of « Rambo ». Kotcheff and the co-creator of Telefilm « Hill Street day and night » Michael Kozoll had adapted a book by the Canadian writer David Morrel in a screenplay for Warner Bros, A violent action movieat the same time anarchoid and reactionary, on the theme then still burning of veterar from Vietnam.

When the Hollywood study refused the projectthe Orion Pictures bought it and, at the suggestion of Kotcheff, assumed The Sylvester Stallone gym To interpret John Rambo, a former green cap engaged in one suicidal mission.

Produced with about 16 million dollars, « Rambo » collected over 125 million dollars all over the world (about $ 317 million today), he gave Stallone his first post-rock’s success e He generated three sequelsnone of which Kotcheff wanted to direct.

« They offered me the first sequel and, after reading the script, I said: » In the first film « . In this film he kills 75 people « », Kotcheff recalled in a 2016 interview with the magazine Filmmaker. «It seemed to celebrate the Vietnam war, which I considered one of the stupid wars of history. Fifty -five thousand young Americans died And many veterans committed suicide. I could not turn like this and make such a film. Of course, today I could have been rich: That sequel collected 300 million dollars ».

Born as William Theodore Kotcheff on April 7, 1931 in Toronto, during the great depression, by Bulgarian-Macedonian parents, As a young man he worked in a slaughterhouse and for the Goodyear Tire & Rubber, e He graduated in English literature at the University of Toronto.

Kotcheff began working at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1952, at the dawn of the television era, first as a driver And then at 24 years like The youngest theatrical director of Canada. A trip to New York in 1953, his first in the United States, for attend Broadway showsended with the arrest of Kotcheff by the border agents after the Royal Canadian Mounda Police had denounced him to the FBI for a short attendance of A left -wing intellectual club.

It was imprisoned for a short period and Bolled as a communist. In 1957 Kotcheff moved to London, where directed by television and theater for over a decade. In Great Britain he made his debut with the satirical comedy « Tiara Tahiti » (1962), followed by the drama « Flagent adultery » (1965), with Laurence Harvey and Jean Simmons.

Once returned to Canada, the director directed in sequence « My gun for Billy » (1974), with Gregory Peck, e « Money at any cost » (1974), with a young Richard Dreyfuss as a young scammer, widely considered One of the best Canadian films ever made and award -winning (including with the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival).

The first great success allows him to turn « Don’t steal … if it is not strictly necessary » (1975), played by Jane Fonda and George Segal; « Someone is killing the greatest chefs in Europe » (1978), still with Segal, Jacqueline Bisset and Robert Morley; the sports comedian « The Dallas mastiffs » (1979) with Nick Nolte; « Weak point » (1982).

The fame reached with « Rambo » allows Ted Kotcheff to turn around a year later « Brothers in the night » (1983), with a very rich cast (Gene Hackman, Robert Stack, Patrick Swayze and Fred Ward), set in Vietnam.

The career of the director continues with alternate phaseshowever, scoring other successes, such as comedies « Husband change » (1988), with Kathleen Turner and Burt Reynolds, e « Weekend with the dead » (1989), which features Andrew McCarthy, Jonathan Silverman and Terry Kiser.

Also in 1989 he directs one of the films he himself considered more personal, « People of the North »a fictional melodrama set in the woods of North Carolina in 1934, taken from a book by John Ehle and played by Kurt Russell, Kelly McGillis, Lloyd Bridges and Mitchelle Ryan.

After the movies «Woe to the family»(1992) e « Shooter – attack in Prague » (1995), from the late nineties Kotcheff has dedicated himself above all to television, where he produced and co-directed the series « Law & Order ».