Melinda Dillon dies; ‘Close Encounters’ actor was nominated for two Oscars

Melinda Dillon, a two-time acting Oscar nominee best known for the movies “A Christmas Story” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” has died, according to a cremation service in Long Beach, California. She was 83.

Dillon died January 9, according to Neptune Society, the cremation provider. No cause of death was given. Her death became widely known on Friday.

She played the mother in “A Christmas Story,” a nostalgic look back at a boy longing for a toy rifle. It was released in 1983 and went on to find an annual holiday audience on video and TV.

Before that, she twice scored Oscar nominations as best supporting actress: In Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters” (1977), she was Jillian Guiler, a mother searching for her little boy after aliens abduct him;  in “Absence of Malice” (1981) she played Teresa Perrone, a woman tormented by a reporter’s coverage of her abortion. (She lost to Vanessa Redgrave for “Julia” and Maureen Stapleton for “Reds.”)

Dillon’s credits included the movies “Slap Shot,” “Harry and the Hendersons,”  “Bound for Glory” and “Magnolia” and episodes of TV series including “Judging Amy,” “Picket Fences” and “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.”

Before making movies, Dillon was nominated for a Tony Award for her role as Honey in the original Broadway production of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” — which opened on her 23rd birthday, in 1962. The Tony went to Sandy Dennis in “A Thousand Clowns.”

Hollywood colleagues and fans tweeted tributes.

“Melinda Dillon was such a great actress, with a wonderful delicacy about her. She was a delight to direct in Prince of Tides. May she rest in peace,” Barbra Streisand wrote.

Lou Diamond Phillips wrote: “So very, very sad to hear of the passing of Melinda Dillon. She played my adopted mother in Sioux City, my second directorial effort. What a Light and a Blessing. So effortless in her work that it was easy to overlook how brilliant she was. I feel so lucky to have known her. RIP.”