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Farewell to Melinda Dillon (with a mystery about her death)

She would have died on January 9, but the news – with a cloak of mystery – has only come out now: the actress Melinda Dillon, 83 years old, is gone. However, nothing is known about the cause of his death.

Many will remember her for her incredible film and television catalog that spans several decades. In the seventies, the actress became famous for playing Julian Guiler, the mother of the kidnapped child, in the legendary science fiction film by Steven Spielberg Close encounters of the third kind. Thanks to her memorable performance (it is said that she was cast just three days before filming began), Melinda Dillion was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In reality, hers was not her only nomination: a few years later she also received hers for her role in Right to report (1981) by Sydney Pollack, with Paul Newman.

Melinda Dillon in a scene from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”

Sunset Boulevard/Getty Images

But cementing her Hollywood star status was her role as Peter Bollinger’s mother in the holiday classic A Christmas Story.

Born in Arkansas on October 13, 1939Dillon spent her childhood in Alabama, Germany and Chicago before joining the famed Second City company as the venue’s first housekeeper.

She later moved to New York City, where she received a Tony nomination and a Theater World Award in 1963 for her Broadway debut as Honey in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee. But he then abandoned the theater for a brilliant film and television career, which he had however already left since 2007: his last film on the big screen was Reign Over Me by Mike Binder (2007).

Source: Vanity Fair

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