Melinda Dillon dead at 83: The beloved actress, best known for her role in A Christmas Story, dies as tributes arrive for the film star

A LOVED Oscar-nominated actress known for her iconic performance in A Christmas Story has passed away.

Melinda Dillon, who was nominated for an Oscar for her roles in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Absence of Malice, died on January 9. She was 83 years old.

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Her death was confirmed in a Dillon family obituary.

The obituary didn’t provide service details about the Los Angeles native, but asked for a digital candlelight to assist.

An accomplished stage actress at first, Dillon received a Tony nomination early in her career in 1963 for her performance in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

She starred in several plays over the next few years, before hitting the big screen in the influential 1969 short The Cry of Jazz.

Years later, she began acting roles in the biopic Bound for Glory (1976) and Slap Shot (1977).

Also in 1977, she landed one of her most influential roles in Steven Spielburg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

She played a distraught mother whose child was abducted by aliens and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

In 1981, Dillon was cast in Sydney Pollack’s Absence of Malice, playing a devout Catholic woman who takes her own life after a reporter revealed her abortion in an article.

While she was critically acclaimed for these performances, her most memorable role came in 1983.

In A Christmas Story, Dillon plays Ralphie’s mother, who pushes back the precocious boy’s insatiable desire for a BB gun.

“Dillon has a sweet comedic presence that threatens to dissolve into creative anarchy,” Sam Kashner wrote of the film in 2016.

“She’s a watchful mother but still a kid at heart, which is evident when she encourages her youngest, Randy, a picky eater, to pretend he’s a pig at a trough.

“Randy really gets into it, snorting and dipping his face in his meatloaf and mashed potatoes while he and his mom burst out laughing.”

While she didn’t receive critical acclaim, she continues to be a welcome presence on living room televisions around the world each holiday season.

Dillon was born in

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