NEW YORK (Bloomberg) — Robert Mulligan, the director of the Academy Award-winning film "To Kill a Mockingbird'' and 18 other Hollywood movies, has died. He was 83.

Mulligan died of heart disease at his home in Lyme, Connecticut, on December 20, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing his nephew Robert Rosenthal.

Mulligan garnered one of eight Oscar nominations in 1962 for "To Kill a Mockingbird," an adaptation of Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a white Southern attorney who defends a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman. He directed five different actors in Oscar-nominated performances, including Ellen Burstyn and Natalie Wood, according to the Internet Movie Database.

"Mockingbird" won three Oscars, including Best Actor for Gregory Peck's portrayal of lawyer Atticus Finch. Variety called Mulligan's work on the film "sensitive and instinctively observant."

Robert Mulligan was born in the Bronx section of New York City on August 23, 1925. He attended Fordham University and started his career in live television in the early 1950s. He won an Emmy Award for Best Director for the NBC film "The Moon and Sixpence" in 1960, according to the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

His first film, "Fear Strikes Out," in which Anthony Perkins played mentally ill Major League Baseball player Jimmy Piersall, was released in 1957, according to IMDB.

Mulligan also directed the 1971 drama "Summer of '42" and the 1978 romantic comedy "Same Time, Next Year." His last film was 1991's "The Man in the Moon," Reese Witherspoon's acting debut.

Mulligan's brother, Richard, who died in 2000, was an Emmy Award-winning actor known for his roles in the television series "Soap," "Empty Nest" and "The Golden Girls," according to IMBD.

Robert Mulligan is survived by his wife, Sandy; three children; two grandchildren; and a brother, James.