William Theodore Kotcheff was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to Bulgarian parents from Plovdiv. He received a degree in English Literature from the University of Toronto.
Kotcheff began his professional career directing TV drama at the age of 24 for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, becoming the youngest director in the CBC at the time. After two years, he moved to England, where he worked in television and theatre.
He won the British Emmy for Best Director twice, including for the docudrama "Edna, the Inebriate Woman" episode of Play for Today (1970). The film also won the Best Actress and Best Script Award.
Kotcheff's television work in Great Britain was part of the new wave of working-class actors and drama that changed British theatre and television in the late 1950s. His stage successes include the long-running Lionel Bart musical, "Maggie May".
His film career started in England with Tiara Tahiti (1962),a social comedy starring James Mason and John Mills. He then directed Life at the Top (1965),starring Laurence Harvey and Jean Simmons, and Two Gentlemen Sharing (1969),a film set in the West Indian community of London.
Kotcheff's next film, Wake in Fright (1971),was made in Australia and was the Australian entry in the Cannes Film Festival. It is considered by many Australians to be the finest Australian film ever made and the beginning of the renaissance of the Australian cinema.
He returned to Canada in 1972 to make a film of a novel written by his best friend, Mordecai Richler, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974). The film won the Golden Bear First Prize at the Berlin Film Festival and numerous other awards, including an Academy Award nomination for best script.
Kotcheff also directed Fun with Dick and Jane (1977),starring Jane Fonda and George Segal; Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? (1978),starring Jacqueline Bisset and George Segal; North Dallas Forty (1979),which he also wrote, starring Nick Nolte; First Blood (1982),starring Sylvester Stallone; Uncommon Valor (1983),starring Gene Hackman; and Weekend at Bernie's (1989).
In the mid-'80s, Kotcheff made a film of another Mordecai Richler novel, Joshua Then and Now (1985),starring James Woods and Alan Arkin. This film was the official Canadian entry in the Cannes Film Festival.
Kotcheff is married to Laifun Chung and has two children, Thomas and Alexandra. His wife is President of their film company, Panoptica Productions, Inc. He has homes in Toronto and Los Angeles.
