Starting with “second city” , Melinda Dillon got two Oscars for ‘Close Encounters’ and ‘Absence of Malice’.
The actress has passed away at the age of 83. Her extensive career included roles in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “A Christmas Story,” Second City, and Hyde Park High School.
Dillon passed away in Los Angeles on January 9, according to a notification from her family. The cause of death was not made public.
The April Fools, her debut movie, starring Melinda Dillon in 1969. Her performance in the 1976 Woody Guthrie movie Bound for Glory earned her a Golden Globe nomination. Magnolia, The Muppet Movie, Harry and the Hendersons, Slap Shot, Sioux City, and To Wong Foo are just a few of her other famous film and television roles.
From 1963 until their divorce in 1978, she was wed to actor Richard Libertini (“Fletch,” “The In-Laws”). The pair met at Second City and had a son together.
She remembered the day she met Libertini, another Second City performer, in Patinkin’s book. She had scheduled a delivery of her mail to the theatre.
She stopped acting in 2007, but A Christmas Story holiday replays have kept her on our screens. Following their divorce in 1978, Dillon married actor Richard Libertini, whom she had met at the Second City. Their son, Richard Libertini Jr., is her only heir.
Melinda Dillon was born in Arkansas and later moved to Chicago, where she attended the Goodman School of Drama, which was then housed at the Art Institute of Chicago after graduating from Hyde Park High School. She eventually got a job checking coats at the Second City, a new comedy theatre. When original cast member Barbara Harris became ill one evening, Dillon offered to step in.
Sheldon Patinkin’s “The Second City,” a history of the business, quotes her as saying “It was fantastic.” “Being the monkey that I am, I understood the show. I admired Barbara and had studied every move and nuance she made.”
Early in the 1960s, Melinda Dillon performed with the company. She received a Tony nomination in 1962 for her Broadway debut as Honey in the Edward Albee classic “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.”
May her soul rest in peace.
Get latest news on The News Garage