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, who received his first producer credit with the film. 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 it about? It's about a middle-aged lawyer with two kids. There's no romance, no violence (except off-screen). There's no action. What is there? Where's the story?" With the help of a screenplay by
Horton Foote as well as the pivotal casting of
Gregory Peck in the role of Atticus Finch, the film became a huge hit, and Mulligan was nominated for an
Academy Award for Best Director. Mulligan and Pakula followed
To Kill a Mockingbird with five more films.
Love With the Proper Stranger (1963), starred
Natalie Wood and
Steve McQueen.
Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965) starred McQueen.
Inside Daisy Clover (1965) starred Wood.
Up the Down Staircase (1967) was based on a humorous
novel by
Bel Kaufman and starred
Sandy Dennis as the schoolteacher Sylvia Barrett.
The Stalking Moon (1968), based on a Western novel by
T.V. Olsen and reuniting Mulligan and Pakula with Peck, this time in the role of Sam Varner, a scout who attempts to escort a white woman (
Eva Marie Saint) and her half-Indian son to New Mexico after they are pursued by a bloodthirsty Apache, the boy's father. After this film, Pakula parted company from Mulligan to pursue his own career in directing.
1970s Mulligan began the 1970s with
The Pursuit of Happiness (1971), based on the 1968 novel by Thomas Rogers, which had been a finalist for the National Book Award. The film starred
Michael Sarrazin as William Popper, a college student (disillusioned with both right-wing and left-wing American politics) whose life is complicated when he accidentally runs over and kills an elderly woman and is quickly sentenced to one year in prison for
vehicular manslaughter. He then contemplates breaking out of prison and fleeing the country with his girlfriend (played by
Barbara Hershey), since neither feels their lives have made any significant difference in America. Also in 1971, Mulligan released ''
Summer of '42'' (1971), which was based on the
coming-of-age novel by
Herman Raucher and starred
Gary Grimes as a teenage stand-in for Raucher who spends a summer vacation in 1942 on
Nantucket Island lusting after a young woman (
Jennifer O'Neill) whose husband has shipped off to fight in the war. A box office smash, ''Summer of '42'' went on to gross over $20 million, and Mulligan was nominated for a
Golden Globe Award for Best Director. ''Summer of '42
was followed by The Other (1972), a thriller film scripted by former Hollywood actor Thomas Tryon from his own book. It told the story of two 9-year-old boys, Niles and Holland Perry (played by real-life twins Chris and Marty Udvarnoky), who get involved in a series of grisly murders at their home on Peaquot Landing in the 1930s. Although the film was not an immediate success at the box office, it has since gone on to gain a steady cult following. In 1973, Mulligan was slated to direct the adaptations of both The Drowning Pool and That Championship Season'', before the jobs went to other directors. In the mid-1970s, Mulligan was briefly engaged in talks with producers
Julia and
Michael Phillips to direct
Taxi Driver (1976), with
Jeff Bridges to star as the psychotic
Travis Bickle. Objections posed by screenwriter
Paul Schrader caused the project to be turned over to
Martin Scorsese and
Robert De Niro instead. Mulligan proceeded by rounding out the 1970s with three films dominated by performances from A-list Hollywood actors:
Jason Miller as a Los Angeles locksmith threatened by hitmen in
The Nickel Ride (1974);
Richard Gere as an Italian-American youth trying to break from his working-class family in
Bloodbrothers (1978); and
Alan Alda and
Ellen Burstyn portraying George and Doris, a pair of long-term adulterers, in
Same Time Next Year (1978), based on the play by
Bernard Slade.
1980s As the 1980s dawned, Mulligan found work harder to come by, succeeding in directing only two films by the end of the decade. Mulligan had started directing
Rich and Famous for MGM but asked to be replaced after a week of shooting;
George Cukor replaced him. Mulligan was also fired from directing
The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper because he allegedly took seven days to shoot a whitewater rapids chase. At another point, according to screenwriter
Hampton Fancher, Mulligan was attached to direct
Blade Runner; his adaptation would have starred
Robert Mitchum. Fancher states that the deal with Mulligan fell apart because of "ego" and because the studio at the time, Universal, wanted a happier ending. Mulligan was also briefly attached to direct ''
Cutter's Way''; his version would have starred
Dustin Hoffman.
Kiss Me Goodbye (1982), starring
Sally Field,
James Caan and
Jeff Bridges, was an attempt at a comedic remake of the Brazilian film
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, and was critically derided, although it was a modest commercial success. ''
Clara's Heart'' (1988), starring
Whoopi Goldberg and a young
Neil Patrick Harris, was released five years later to negative box office numbers and reviews, and was panned on television by
Siskel and Ebert. It has, however, received recent praise from film professor Robert Keser.
1990s In the 1990s, at the age of 66, Mulligan would release his final film,
The Man in the Moon (1991), starring a 14-year-old
Reese Witherspoon, in her film debut. The film was praised by
Roger Ebert, who included it at #8 in his Top 10 list of the best films of 1991, declaring, "Nothing else [Mulligan] has done... approaches the purity and perfection of
The Man in the Moon... (with a) poetic, bittersweet tone, and avoid(ing) the sentimentalism and cheap emotion that could have destroyed this story." Later in March 1992, Mulligan made headlines when he angrily took his name off of airline cuts of
The Man in the Moon, after he had learned that the film would be heavily censored by American and Delta flights. In an interview with Ebert, Mulligan explained, "The airlines demanded so many excessive and unreasonable cuts and changes that I took my name off the film... it's the first time I've ever done that." Before his death in 2008, Mulligan had commissioned playwright
Beth Henley to write a screenplay from the novel
A Long and Happy Life by
Reynolds Price, which Mulligan had bought the rights to with his own money. The film was never made. == Personal life ==