Robert Mulligan | Movie director, 83

Robert Mulligan, 83, who was nominated for an Academy Award for directing the 1962 film

To Kill a Mockingbird

, died Saturday at his home in Lyme, Conn.

Mr. Mulligan began working in live television in New York in the early 1950s and won an Emmy Award for the TV movie

The Moon and Sixpence

in 1960. His first film,

Fear Strikes Out

, was released in 1957 and told the story of mentally ill baseball player Jimmy Piersall, played by Anthony Perkins.

Mr. Mulligan directed 19 more films, including

Summer of '42

,

The Other

and

Same Time, Next Year

, before capping his career in 1991 with

Man in the Moon

, featuring actress Reese Witherspoon in her movie debut.

The highlight of Mr. Mulligan's career was

To Kill a Mockingbird

, a courtroom drama adapted from Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and centered on Southern lawyer Atticus Finch and his children, Scout and Jem. The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including best picture, and won three: best actor (Gregory Peck), best screenplay (Horton Foote) and art direction (Alexander Golitzen, Henry Bumstead and Oliver Emert).

- Los Angeles Times