Everyone has to die one day, it’s a bitter truth. Let us tell you that Melinda Dillon, who ruled millions of hearts and got an Oscar nomination for her performance, is no longer with us. Scroll down for details.
Melinda Dillon, who received Oscar nominations for her dramatic performances in Paul Newman’s journalism drama Absence of Malice and Steven Spielberg’s 1977 sci-fi classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but was perhaps best known for playing Ralphie’s mother in the original A Christmas Story, has passed away at the age of 83.
According to a public obituary, she passed away on January 9, but no other information was provided.
During her 50-year career in Hollywood, Dillon also had parts in the movies Harry and the Hendersons, Slap Shot, The Prince of Tides, and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! How to Make an American Quilt, Magnolia, and Julie Newmar. On TV, she was in Tracy Takes On…, Judging Amy, The Twilight Zone, The Jeffersons, and Bonanza.
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Despite spending her early years in Alabama, Germany, and, as a New York Daily News report in October 1962 put it, “anywhere the Army moved her stepfather,” the future movie mom was born in Hope, Arkansas. She later worked with the renowned Second City improv company in its formative years before trying her luck in a more dramatic endeavour on stage.
She portrayed Honey in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Original Broadway production in 1962, for which she was nominated for a Ton Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play. Only 23, she was.
She had two distinct characters in the Woody Guthrie biopic Bound for Glory fourteen years later, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe in the category of Best Female Debut. After that, Spielberg approached her for Close Encounters, where she received an Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actress for portraying Jillian Guiler, a single mother whose son is kidnapped by aliens.
Four years later, in 1981, she received a second nomination for supporting actress in Malice, which also starred Sally Field.
A Christmas Story, a classic film, was released in 1983. When her kid swore, Dillon made him put a soap bar in his mouth. When he beat up the bully, Dillon also helped him make amends with his frightening father. Christmas Eve marks the start of a 24-hour TV marathon of the perennial holiday favourite.
Since Dillon quit acting in 2007, when she last made an appearance in the Canadian family drama Heartland, she did not return to the character in the A Christmas Story Christmas sequel from the previous year.
Julie Hagerty performed the part of her. In December, Billingsley stated to Entertainment Weekly that “Melinda, as you say, has stopped acting, and she wishes us luck in our endeavours. I had discussed this with her.”
Before divorcing in the late 1970s, Dillon was married to Richard Libertini for 15 years off-screen. Shared a son.
Many of her followers shared their condolences for Melinda Dillon, let’s take a look at some of their tweets
So sad to hear Melinda Dillon has passed away #rip #slapshot pic.twitter.com/sYXkFUhMTh
— The Hanson Brother #17 (@Hanson_Brothers) February 4, 2023
Goodbye Melinda Dillon
I worked with her and she was of course humble and kind. A pros pro. RIP
— Treat Williams (@Rtreatwilliams) February 4, 2023
Melinda Dillon’s work had such a profound effect on me. Every moment of her performance in Close Encounters was perfection.
I’m so grateful she decided to give her artistry to the world. https://t.co/QccHdzcgBd
— Jon Cryer (@MrJonCryer) February 4, 2023
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