Celebrity Biographies
Robert mulligan
The illustrious American film director Robert Mulligan died on December 19, at the age of 83, due to heart disease. Death came to the filmmaker at his Connecticut home. He was active until 1991, when he retired after three intense decades dedicated to storytelling. He was one of the great representatives of the so-called “television generation”, and like the other filmmakers who receive that label (Arthur Penn, Martin Ritt, Sidney Lumet) his specialty was directing actors and simple stories that did not require spectacular budgets.
Born in New York on August 23, 1925, Robert Mulligan was the son of a policeman. He studied at Fordham University, and during World War II he enlisted in the Navy. Although he began his work in the editorial department of the New York Times newspaper, he was especially drawn to the small screen. So, as soon as he could, he went to work for a television network, CBS, first as a ‘delivery boy’. He rose little by little, because he was a restless young man, eager to learn even the smallest detail. Before long, he became an episode director for shows like Goodyear Television Playhouse and Studio One .
Mulligan was soon required for the cinema. He debuted on the big screen with The Price of Success , a drama in which Anthony Perkins played a real character, Jimmy Piersall, who was a baseball player. The film meant Robert Mulligan’s meeting with Alan J. Pakula , who worked as a producer, with whom he would shoot his best films, before he in turn became a director. He then adapts for television The Moon and Six Pence , a minor but very interesting work by William Somerset Maugham. It marked the American television debut of Britain’s Laurence Olivier , and Mulligan won the Emmy Award for Best Director.
Mulligan did very well with actor Tony Curtis , with whom he filmed Lost in the Big City and The Great Impostor , and also with Rock Hudson , who starred under him in When September Comes and Jungle Road . He resumes his association with Alan J. Pakula in To Kill a Mockingbird , an impeccable adaptation of Harper Lee ‘s novel , which is probably his best work. Mulligan himself was nominated for an Oscar for best director, and although he did not win, the film was made with three statuettes, one for Gregory Peck–the only Oscar of his long career–, for his unforgettable portrayal of Atticus Finch, a southern lawyer who defends a black man accused of raping a white woman. As in the book, the skilled filmmaker was able to tell the story through the eyes of Scout, Finch’s daughter, a girl.
After Love with a stranger -also with Pakula-, The rebel -which described what Hollywood was like in the 30s-, the western The night of the giants , and the romantic film Seeking happiness , Mulligan obtained his biggest box office success with Summer del 42 , initiation tape about a group of teenagers. She also has a lot of interest in The Other One, a worthy foray into the horror genre with a surprising script, which follows in the footsteps of two 9-year-old twin brothers on a Connecticut farm.
The filmmaker also met with failure with The Key Man , about the world of the mafia, which despite the fact that it convinced the critics, was a great disaster for the public. It was so bad for him that for some time he had difficulties obtaining financing to carry out his projects, until at the end of the 70s he returned to the chopping block with intensity, with Stony, Hot Blood and Next Year at the same time . Although some of his final works are far below the rest of his filmography ( Kiss me and be gone , El corazón de Clara ), he said goodbye to the big screen with Summer in Louisiana, in which he returned to the theme of childhood and the discovery of love, through the story of a fourteen-year-old girl who fell in love with a shy boy who lived on the farm next door.