Melinda Dillon, ‘Close Encounters’ Actress, Dead at 83

Melinda Dillon, the two-time (*83*)-nominee who starred in such movies as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Absence of Malice and A Christmas Story, has died at 83.

The actress’s passing was confirmed by her household, who famous that her date of dying was Jan. 9. No additional particulars got.

Born in Hope, Ark., Dillon’s first style of present enterprise got here in Chicago, the place she bought a job working the coat verify desk at the famed comedy membership The Second City. She finally turned a part of the improv troupe, earlier than heading to New York and the brilliant lights of Broadway.

Dillon earned a Tony nomination 1963 for her portrayal of Honey within the authentic manufacturing of Edward Albee‘s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? After additional theater work, she’d shift into movie and tv roles.

In 1976, Dillon starred alongside David Carradine within the Woody Guthrie biopic Bound for Glory, incomes a Golden Globe nomination for her function as Memphis Sue. A 12 months later she’d be forged as Jillian Guiler, a mom whose son is kidnapped by aliens, in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The Steven Spielberg sci-fi basic earned Dillon as Best Supporting Actress nomination at the Academy Awards.

See Melinda Dillon in ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’

She’d land the second (*83*) nomination of her profession in 1981 due to the thriller Absence of Malice. The movie starred Paul Newman as a Miami liquor wholesaler who was implicated by a neighborhood newspaper reporter for a homicide he didn’t commit. The movie was a reunion of types for Newman and Dillon, as the 2 had labored collectively beforehand on the cult hockey comedy Slap Shot.

Dillon’s lengthy profession included many extra notable credit. In 1983, she performed Mrs. Parker, mom of Ralphie within the basic vacation movie A Christmas Story. Four years later, Dillon starred alongside John Lithgow in Harry and the Hendersons. The Prince of Tides (1991), Magnolia (1999) and the Adam Sandler drama Reign Over Me (2007) are simply a number of the many different movies which featured the actress. According to IMDB, Dillon’s most up-to-date appearing work got here in 2007, when she appeared on three episodes of the TV collection Heartland.