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…