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Melinda Dillon

Melinda Rose Dillon (born October 13, 1939 in Hope, Arkansas) is an American actress.
Though best known for her supporting performances in films, Dillon got her start as an improvisational comedian and stage actress.

Her first major role was as Honey in the original 1962 Broadway production of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, for which she was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress (Dramatic) Tony Award.

She followed her early Broadway success with her first film, The April Fools, in 1969. Playing "Memphis Sue" opposite David Carradine, she was nominated for the Best Female Acting Debut Golden Globe for the 1976 Woody Guthrie biopic Bound For Glory.

She was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the role of a mother whose young child is abducted by aliens in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters Of The Third Kind in 1977. Four years later she was once again nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance as a suicidal teacher in 1981's Absence Of Malice, opposite Paul Newman, with whom she had also appeared in Slap Shot.

As a comedienne, Dillon is perhaps best known for her role as the compassionate mother of Ralphie in Bob Clark's 1983 film A Christmas Story. The film was based on a series of short stories and novels written by Jean Shepherd, and follows young Ralphie Parker (played by Peter Billingsley) on his quest for a BB gun from Santa Claus.

Five years later she appeared opposite John Lithgow in the Bigfoot comedy Harry And The Hendersons. She continued to be active in stage and film throughout the 1990s, taking minor roles in the Barbra Streisand drama The Prince Of Tides, the low-budget Lou Diamond Phillips thriller Sioux City, and the drama How To Make An American Quilt.

She has remained a private person, and information about her personal life is largely unknown. She was married briefly to character actor Richard Libertini, with whom she had one child. In recent years her career has waned, but she has taken notable roles in the 1999 ensemble drama Magnolia and the TV adaptation of John Grisham's A Painted House in 2003.

Height
5' 8" (1.73 m)

What members say | Filmography

Melinda Dillon - what members say

Absence Of Malice review by from Oxford

A film to make you think about the news 14 April 2006
...e best lines; and the film features a couple of wonderful supporting turns from Melinda Dillon [a Best Supporting Actress nominee] as Newman's innocent friend caught up in th... Read customer review

Melinda Dillon - filmography

A Painted House (2003)
Starring: Arija Bareikis, Melinda Dillon, Robert Sean Leonard
Director: Alfonso Arau
Certificate:
A murder leaves the town seething in gossip and suspicion. A beautiful young woman catches Luke's eye. A fatherless baby is born, and someone has begun painting the bare clapboards of the Chandler farmhouse, painstakingly bathing the run-down structure in gleaming white. A memorable adaptaion of ..read more »

No ratings yet. Be the first.
Currently unavailable

Magnolia - Blu-ray (1999)
Starring: Jeremy Blackman, Tom Cruise, Melinda Dillon
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Certificate:
In a single day in Los Angeles, a number of interconnected lives are changed forever. A lonely police officer (John C. Reilly) falls in love with a disturbed cocaine addict (Melora Walters). Her father (Philip Baker Hall), the host of the game show "What Do Kids Know

70% from 724 members

Magnolia on DVD (1999)
Starring: Jeremy Blackman, Tom Cruise, Melinda Dillon
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Certificate:
On one random day in the San Fernando Valley, a dying father, a young wife, a male caretaker, a famous lost son, a police officer in love, a boy genius, an ex-boy genius, a game show host and an estranged daughter will each become part of a dazzling multiplicity of plots, but one story. Through a ..read more »

66% from 23,901 members

Entertaining Angels - The Dorothy Day Story on DVD (1996)
Starring: Moira Kelly, Martin Sheen, Heather Graham
Director: Michael Ray Rhodes
Certificate:
After living as a young boheme in 1930's New York--replete with heavy drinking, chain-smoking, sexual promiscuity, and unconventional activism--Dorothy Day yearns for a deeper meaning in life. She discovers God and a greater fulfillment in aiding the poor by opening the Houses of Hospitality in the ..read more »

60% from 60 members

Love Can Build A Bridge on DVD (1995)
Starring: Kathleen York, Viveka Davis, Bruce Greenwood
Director: Bobby Roth
Certificate:
The true story of Naomi and Wynonna Judd who became country music's most honoured and successful female singing stars. Soundtrack by The Judds.

59% from 81 members

To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything Julie... (1995)
Starring: Wesley Snipes, Patrick Swayze, John Leguizamo
Director: Beeban Kidron
Certificate:
Noxeema Jackson, Vida Boheme, and Chi Chi Rodriguez are gonna show America a thing or two about being fabulous. Dressed to kill, with their Dynel tresses tossing in the breeze behind them, these three stars of New York's drag-queen beauty pageant circuit have hit the open road in a 1967 Cadillac ..read more »

67% from 2,899 members
Not currently released

How To Make An American Quilt on DVD (1995)
Starring: Kate Capshaw, Melinda Dillon, Dermot Mulroney
Director: Jocelyn Moorhouse
Certificate:
Director Jocelyn Moorhouse's film adaptation of the novel by Whitney Otto stars Winona Ryder as Finn Dodd, a Berkeley graduate student on summer hiatus at her grandmother's home to work on her thesis and ponder a marriage proposal from her boyfriend, Sam (Dermot Mulroney). Finn's grandma, Hy (Ellen ..read more »

60% from 2,424 members

Ultimate Revenge on DVD (1994)
Starring: Lou Diamond Phillips, Salli Richardson, Melinda Dillon
Director: Lou Diamond Phillips
Certificate:
Jesse Goldman began his life on a poor Indian reservation in Nebraska, but grew up with every advantage after being adopted by a Beverly Hills couple. Two decades later he returns to the reservation and meets up with suspicion, violence and deadly revenge...

44% from 33 members

Captain America The Movie (1992)
Starring: Matt Salinger, Ronny Cox, Ned Beatty
Director: Albert Pyun
Certificate:
Captain America emerges during World War II to take on Hitler's new weapon, super agent Red Skull. Can Captain America save the White House from a deadly missile.....

42% from 316 members
Not currently released

The Prince Of Tides on DVD (1991)
Starring: Barbra Streisand, Nick Nolte, Blythe Danner
Director: Barbra Streisand
Certificate:
Tom Wingo, a disillusioned football coach, leaves his wife and sets off for New York in an effort to uncover his tortured childhood, to help his psychologically- troubled sister. His sister's psychiatrist, Susan Lowenstein, gains the courage to resolve her own marital strife.

67% from 879 members

Advance To Ground Zero on DVD (1989)
Starring: Joe Pantoliano, Martin Sheen, Lea Thompson
Director: Peter Markle
Certificate:
ADVANCE TO GROUND ZERO is based on the recent revelation that the US government, in the interests of scientific research, deliberately exposed servicemen to radiation during the Nevada atomic bomb tests of the 1950s. Martin Sheen plays a former military doctor, inexplicably suffering from sterility ..read more »

64% from 18 members

Spontaneous Combustion on DVD (1989)
Starring: Brad Dourif, Cynthia Bain, Melinda Dillon
Director: Tobe Hooper
Certificate:
Sam Kramer discovers that he is the result of a top secret radiation experiment gone awry, and that his tragic legacy will turn him into a firebomb of unstoppable power.

37% from 164 members

Nightbreaker (1989)
Starring: Martin Sheen, Emilio Estevez, Melinda Dillon
Director: Peter Markle
Certificate:
Real life father and son Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez star in this terrifying true story that changed mankind. THEY BELIEVED IT WOULD SAVE THE WORLD THEY DID NOT REALISE IT WOULD ULTIMATELY DESTROY THEM ALL 1956. EMILIO ESTEVEZ is Dr Alexander Brown, a young determined neurologist in the U.S. ..read more »

60% from 2 members
Currently unavailable

Harry And The Hendersons on DVD (1987)
Starring: John Lithgow, Melinda Dillon, Margaret Langrick
Director: William Dear
Certificate:
Returning from a hunting trip in the forest, the Henderson family's car hits an animal in the road. At first they fear it was a man, but when they examine the "body" they find it's a "bigfoot". They think it's dead so they decide to take it home (there could be some money in this..). 'Harry' the ..read more »

72% from 726 members

Shattered Spirits on DVD (1986)
Starring: Martin Sheen, Melinda Dillon, Matthew Laborteaux
Director: Robert Greenwald
Certificate:
An alcoholic, who has previously been protected by his wife, suddenly finds his life crumbling around him when he loses his job and the whole family is put on the poverty line. He must deal with the situation by himself and is forced to try to rebuild a home full of shattered spirits.

52% from 36 members

A Christmas Story on DVD (1983)
Starring: Yano Anaya, Peter Billingsley, Melinda Dillon
Director: Bob Clark
Certificate:
Watch now: £2.49
A Christmas Story takes us back to the innocent days of 1940s American, a time when all a young boy wants for Christmas is a BB gun. Young Ralphie has his heart set on getting one and he sets out on a full scale offensive to make sure his wish comes true.

73% from 945 members

Absence Of Malice on DVD (1981)
Starring: Paul Newman, Sally Field, Bob Balaban
Director: Sydney Pollack
Certificate:
Sydney Pollack directs Paul Newman as Michael Gallagher, the innocent son of a long-dead Mafia boss who suddenly finds that he is the subject of a criminal investigation. Eventually he discovers that the press's source is intentionally pressuring him and hoping that he'll leak insider information ..read more »

62% from 558 members

F.I.S.T. on DVD (1978)
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Rod Steiger, Peter Boyle
Director: Norman Jewison
Certificate:
Stallone plays a Jimmy Hoffa-type in this well-conceived drama about powerful bunions. As Johnny Kovak, an honest factory worker, Stallone takes on mobsters, union corruption and a crooked US senator after being forced to stand up for his rights. After cutting a deal with the blob, he finds he may ..read more »

57% from 375 members

Close Encounters Of The Third Kind - Blu-ray (1977)
Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon
Director: Steven Spielberg
Certificate:
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND is Steven Spielberg's extraordinary film about a man named Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) who becomes obsessed with meeting extraterrestrials after encountering a UFO on an abandoned road one night. Against the wishes of his wife (Teri Garr) and children, Neary, ..read more »

76% from 2,509 members

Close Encounters Of The Third Kind on DVD (1977)
Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon
Director: Steven Spielberg
Certificate:
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND is Steven Spielberg's extraordinary film about a man named Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) who becomes obsessed with meeting extraterrestrials after encountering a UFO on an abandoned road one night. Against the wishes of his wife (Teri Garr) and children, Neary, ..read more »

70% from 19,360 members

Bound For Glory on DVD (1976)
Starring: David Carradine, Ronny Cox, Melinda Dillon
Director: Hal Ashby
Certificate:
Hal Ashby's film of Woody Guthrie's autobiography, BOUND FOR GLORY, recounts the protest singer's life starting when he's a young man with a wife and two children, trying to find work as a sign painter in the Dust Bowl-ravaged Texas of the 1930s. He leaves his wife, Mary (Melinda Dillon), with her ..read more »

61% from 441 members

Melinda Dillon facts

5 most recent films

A Painted House - 3 stars
Magnolia - Blu-ray - 3.5 stars
Magnolia - 3.5 stars
Entertaining Angels - The Dorothy Day Story - 3.0 stars
Love Can Build A Bridge - 3.0 stars

5 highest-rated films

Close Encounters Of The Third Kind - Blu-ray - 4.0 stars
A Christmas Story - 3.5 stars
Harry And The Hendersons - 3.5 stars
Close Encounters Of The Third Kind - 3.5 stars
Magnolia - Blu-ray - 3.5 stars

5 lowest-rated films

A Painted House - 3 stars
Ultimate Revenge - 2.0 stars
Shattered Spirits - 2.5 stars
Nightbreaker - 3.0 stars
Advance To Ground Zero - 3.0 stars

Most frequent co-stars

Martin Sheen - 4 times - show films
Phillip Seymour Hoffman - 3 times - show films
April Grace - 3 times - show films
Miriam Margolyes - 3 times - show films
Tom Cruise - 3 times - show films

Most frequent directors

Paul Thomas Anderson - 3 times - show films
Bob Clark - 2 times - show films
Steven Spielberg - 2 times - show films
Peter Markle - 2 times - show films
Barbra Streisand - 1 times - show films