Variety.com is reporting that Robert Mulligan, an Academy Award-nominated film and television director, passed away on December 20th. He was 83.

Born August 23, 1925 in the Bronx, NY, Mulligan is best known as the director of the film version of “To Kill A Mockingbird” starring Gregory Peck in 1962. Based on the 1960 novel of the same name by author Harper Lee, the movie is about the racial tensions surrounding the trial of a black man in a small Southern town, largely told through the eyes of a young child.

Mulligan also directed actress 1960’s “Rat Race”, the thriller “The Other” in 1972, and Reese Witherspoon’s first film “The Man In The Moon” in 1991, which was his last film. He began his career at CBS as a messenger boy and by 1948 was directing in TV. His first feature was “Fear Strikes Out” in 1957, based on the autobiography “Fear Strikes Out: The Jim Piersall Story”, on the about the life and times of renowned baseball player Jimmy Piersall, starring Anthony Perkins of “Psycho” fame as the baseball player himself.

Shockya.com extends our condolences to his family.