Director's Cut: My Life in Film

From Weekend at Bernie’s to First Blood and Law & Order: SVU, the legendary director recounts his journey and wide-ranging career in this intimate memoir . . . with a foreword by Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award-winning actress Mariska Hargitay

Publishers Weekly Starred Review

“It is a fascinating, startling thing to look over the films Ted has made and realize that he never met a genre he couldn’t conquer.” — Richard Dreyfuss, Academy Award-winning actor

“It is for such insights into the director’s craft that Ted Kotcheff’s digressive, sometimes salty Director’s Cut: My Life in Film is a book to be valued . . . a bounty of no-nonsense homiletics on the duty of the director and regular injections of salacious gossip.” — Film Comment

Born to immigrant parents and raised in the slums of Toronto during the Depression, Ted Kotcheff learned storytelling on the streets before taking a stagehand job at CBC Television. Kotcheff went on to direct some of the greatest films of the freewheeling 1970s, including The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Wake in Fright, and North Dallas Forty.

After directing the 1980s blockbusters First Blood and Weekend at Bernie’s, Kotcheff helped produce the groundbreaking TV show Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. During his career, he was declared a communist by the U.S. government, banned from the Royal Albert Hall in London, and coped with assassination threats on one of his lead actors.

With his seminal films enjoying a critical renaissance, including praise from Martin Scorsese and Nick Cave, Kotcheff now turns the lens on himself. Director’s Cut is not just a memoir, but a close-up on life and craft, with stories of his long friendship with Mordecai Richler and working with stars like Sylvester Stallone, James Mason, Gregory Peck, Ingrid Bergman, Gene Hackman, Jane Fonda, and Richard Dreyfuss, as well as advice on how to survive the slings and arrows of Hollywood.

Ted Kotcheff resides in Los Angeles with his wife, Laifun, and their two children, Alexandra and Thomas. Josh Young is the co-author of five New York Times bestsellers, including books by Howie Mandel, Bob Newhart, and Jim Belushi. Mariska Hargitay is an Emmy- and Golden Globe–winning actor, producer, and director.