Ted Kotcheff has had a really, really strong career - lots of first-class television in Canada and the UK, plenty of stage productions in London (something of which I was unaware before reading this book), broke into directing features in Britain relatively young, moving over to a Hollywood career, turning out a fair few classics in all genres - Canadian coming of age (The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravtiz), Australian movies (Wake in Fright), gritty football dramas (North Dallas Forty), comedies (Fun with Dick and Jane, Weekend at Bernies), action (First Blood) - and nicely winding up his career with a long stint on Law and Order SUV as well as publishing some poems.
You wonder then why he's such a whinger. He whinges about how poor his family was when growing up, how his parents smacked him around, how the Canadian government were useless, how the Canadian funding authorities didn't give him more money, how the US government wouldn't let him into the country. Ted has a healthy sense of entitlement which presumably helped power him through a long career.
To be fair the book isn't all whining I was just surprised that there was so much in it... especially considering the opportunities Kotcheff got in Canada and the UK and Hollywood (good luck if you were a person of colour or a woman, Ted.. or maybe a bit older or younger at the time). Still, an interesting read.
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