Another Hollywood Legend Gone: Director Behind 'Rambo' and 'Weekend at Bernie's' Dead At 94

Ted Kotcheff, the famed Canadian director who was just as comfortable helming a violent war movie as he was a screwball comedy, has died, RadarOnline.com can report.

His family confirmed the talented movie and television boss died of heart failure on Thursday in Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico, just days after celebrating his 94th birthday.

Kotcheff had a varied career, directing over 50 movies. In 1982, he brought to life Sylvester Stallone’s traumatized Vietnam War veteran John Rambo with First Blood. The bloody action flick spawned a series of sequels, video games, comic books and even a cartoon for kids.

But his talent wasn't limited to action movies. In 1989, he directed the cult classic comedy Weekend at Bernie's, starring a young Andrew McCarthy and Johnathan Silverman as friends who concoct a crazy scheme to convince partiers their dead boss Bernie is actually still alive.

In more recent years, he spent 13 seasons as an executive producer on the popular Dick Wolf series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

Kotcheff's son Thomas said his dad "died peacefully surrounded by loved ones."

Daughter Kate told news outlets: "He was an amazing storyteller. He was an incredible, larger than life character and he was so knowledgeable about so many different things.

"One of his great talents was people would sit around and he'd tell the most incredible stories. He was almost like the sort of character that doesn't really exist much in the world anymore."

The Toronto native began his career directing Canadian TV dramas in the 1950s. He would go on to be behind the camera for such classics as the original Fun With Dick and Jane, starring George Segal and Jane Fonda; the Nick Nolte-Mac Davis football drama North Dallas Forty and the action flick Uncommon Valor starring Gene Hackman.

One genre he wouldn't tackle was sequels. Although First Blood was a huge hit, grossing more than $125million worldwide (the equivalent of $317million today) he turned down the chance to direct additional installments.

In a 2016 interview with Filmmaker magazine he revealed after reading the script for what would go on to be Rambo: First Blood Part II he said: "In the first film he doesn’t kill anybody. In this film he kills 75 people. It seemed to be celebrating the Vietnam War, which I thought was one of the stupidest wars in history.

"Fifty-five-thousand young Americans died and so many veterans committed suicide. I couldn’t turn myself inside out like that and make that kind of picture.

Of course, I could have been a rich man today — that sequel made $300 million."

Kotcheff said he wasn't interested in a sequel to Weekend at Bernie's either, explaining that he had "run out of dead-man jokes."

Kotcheff went on to serve as an executive producer for nearly 300 episodes of one of TV's longest-running shows, Law & Order: SVU. He also directed seven episodes of the NBC show.

As producer, he gave the final ok to cast stars Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay, who described him in the foreword of his memoir as "a man whose charisma came from an unfettered appetite for life."

"Ted speaks the truth, directs the truth, pulls the truth out of all the actors he works with," said Hargitay. "You can see that in the performances he directed on our show and in all his films."

Series creator Dick Wolf reflected: "Ted was an integral part of the SVU family for over 13 years. He was not only a great producer and director, he was also a close friend. I will miss him."