He wasn’t a household name, but Robert Mulligan crafted what is undeniably one of the greatest films of all time: To Kill a Mockingbird. The filmmaker, who received an Oscar nomination for directing the classic 1962 adaptation of the Harper Lee novel, died of heart disease Friday at his Connecticut home. He was 83.
The workman-like Mulligan was known as an actor’s director, guiding Gregory Peck to an Oscar as Mockingbird’s iconic Atticus Finch and hiring the likes of Robert Redford, Natalie Wood, Anthony Perkins, Ellen Burstyn and Richard Gere. Mulligan also discovered Reese Witherspoon, casting her in 1991’s The Man in the Moon, her first feature.
His credits also include Fear Strikes Out, Inside Daisy Clover, Love With the Proper Stranger, Summer of ’42 and Same Time, Next Year, but Mulligan will always be remembered for Mockingbird, which was named the No. 25 film of all time on the latest countdown from the American Film Institute and was selected for immortality as part of the National Film Registry.
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Craig Hill 