Melinda Dillon, 83
Dillon was the motherly figure in some of the most famous movies of all time.
For Steven Spielberg’s 1977 classic “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” she plays the mother who can’t stop her son from being abducted by aliens and alongside Richard Dreyfuss searches for answers.
Then in 1983’s “A Christmas Story” she plays a mother trying to raise two boys in the beloved comedy.
With her gentle features and soft voice, Dillon made you feel emotions even with the silliest movie, like she did playing the mother of a family that takes in Bigfoot in the 1987 comedy “Harry and the Hendersons.”
Dillon was nominated for a Tony in 1963 for her performance of Honey in the play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” She was nominated for best supporting actress twice: “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and the 1981 drama “Absence of Malice.”
Dillon died January 9. No cause was given.