The Canadian film-maker Ted Kotcheff, who has died aged 94, was denied entry to the US for being a suspected communist, banned for life from the Royal Albert Hall for organising a 1968 anti-apartheid charity show that ended with the burning of the American flag, and directed a TV play, broadcast live, in which one of the actors died during the second act.
If this suggests a calamitous career, the reality was very different. Kotcheff’s beginnings as a hired hand in Canadian television left him well-placed to become one of the most versatile directors in commercial cinema.
