John Gavin, Actor Who Became Ambassador To Mexico, Has Died

LOS ANGELES (AP) - John Gavin, the tall, strikingly handsome actor who appeared in "Spartacus," "Psycho" and other hit films of the 1960s before becoming President Ronald Reagan's ambassador to Mexico, has died at age 86.

Budd Burton Moss is the manager of Gavin's wife, actress Constance Towers. He says Gavin died Friday. No cause of death was immediately available.

Gavin played Julius Caesar in "Spartacus" and Janet Leigh's divorced lover, Sam Loomis, in the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock classic "Psycho."

Reagan appointed Gavin as Mexico's ambassador in 1981, a country he already had ties with.

His father had invested in the country's mines, and ancestors of his Mexican-born mother had been among California's first Spanish settlers. Gavin had often visited Mexico in his youth and was fluent in Spanish and Portuguese.

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