Robert Patrick Mulligan (August 23, 1925 – December 20, 2008) was an American director and producer. He is best known for his humanist dramas, including To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Summer of '42 (1971), The Other (1972), Same Time, Next Year (1978), and The Man in the Moon (1991). He was also known in the 1960s for his extensive collaborations with producer Alan J. Pakula. Early life Mulligan served in either the U.S. Navy or the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II as a radio operator. At war's end, he graduated from Fordham University, then obtained work in the editorial department of The New York Times, but left to pursue a career in television. Career Television Mulligan began his television career as a messenger boy for CBS television. He worked diligently, and by 1948 was directing major dramatic television shows. In the early 1950s he directed many episodes of Suspense. He followed this directing for The Philco Television Playhouse, Armstrong Circle Theatre, The Alcoa Hour, The United States Steel Hour, Studio One in Hollywood, Goodyear Playhouse and The Seven Lively Arts. 1950s–1960s In 1957 Mulligan directed his first motion picture, Fear Strikes Out, starring Anthony Perkins as tormented baseball player Jimmy Piersall. The film was the first feature he would direct alongside longtime collaborator Alan J. Pakula, then a big-time Hollywood producer. Pakula once confessed that "working with Bob set me back in directing several years because I enjoyed working with him, and we were having a good time, and I enjoyed the work." Mulligan returned to television to direct episodes of Playhouse 90, Rendezvous, The Dupont Show of the Month, and TV versions of Ah, Wilderness! and The Moon and Sixpence. In 1959 he won an Emmy Award for directing The Moon and Sixpence, a television production that was the American small-screen debut of Laurence Olivier. Mulligan returned to feature films to make two Tony Curtis vehicles, The Rat Race and The Great Imposter. He was going to make a third, The Wine of Youth but it was not made. Mulligan then made two Rock Hudson vehicles, Come September and The Spiral Road. Pakula collaboration In the early 1960s, Pakula returned to Mulligan with the proposition of directing To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee. Mulligan accepted the offer despite the awareness that "the other studios didn't want it because what's