HOLLYWOOD actor John Gavin, who starred in horror movie Psycho, has died at the age of 86 after a long battle with leukaemia, it’s reported.

The Sun reports that the movie star, who served as President Ronald Reagan’s ambassador to Mexico in the 1980s, died on Friday after complications from pneumonia.

A representative for his wife, actress Constance Towers, confirmed he passed away surrounded by family and friends at his home in Beverly Hills.

He had been taken into hospital just before Christmas following a long-term fight with cancer, reports TMZ.

Constance, best known for her role in US soap General Hospital, told the site: “We lost our best friend, father and husband. We were so grateful to have him.”

Gavin played Janet Leigh’s divorced lover, Sam Loomis, in the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock classic Psycho.

He also starred in other hit Sixties movies, including the role of Julius Caesar in Spartacus.

After appearances in a handful of 1950s B-movies, Gavin’s breakthrough came in 1958 when he landed the lead role of a World War II German soldier in A Time to Love and a Time to Die.

The following year he starred opposite Lana Turner in a remake of the soap opera Imitation of Life before landing the role in Psycho.

Gavin went on to make a flurry of films over the next two years, appearing opposite Susan Hayward in Back Street, with Sandra Dee in Peter Ustinov’s Shakespearean spoof Romanoff and Juliet.

His career began to wane by the end of the 1960s and a minor role in the 1967 musical Thoroughly Modern Millie, starring Julie Andrews, marked the end of his association with Universal.

He made a few other films and appeared on such TV shows as Fantasy Island, The Love Boat and Hart to Hart, but he was already on the road to another profession, diplomacy.

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.

The Mexicans were initially dubious about having a former movie star as their US ambassador, but he soon won the country over and remained in the job until 1986.

Paying tribute to the acting legend, director William Friedkin wrote on Twitter: “A sad day, my great friend John Gavin died. This morning.

“One of the finest men I knew. And like a brother to me. May he Rest In Peace.”