Melinda Dillon was born on October 12 1939 in Hope, Arkansas. Her mother divorced her father, and later she married an Army veteran. As a result Melinda Dillon grew up on several military bases. She graduated from high school in Chicago. She was working as hat check girl at Second City in Chicago when she had to substitute for Barbara Harris, who was sick, in a sketch. This basically began her acting career.
After graduation from the Goodman School of Drama at the Art Institute of Chicago, Melinda Dillon moved to New York City. There she made her debut on Broadway in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. In the Sixties she guest starred on the TV shows The Defenders, East Side/West Side, Bonanza, and Storefront Lawyers. She appeared in the movie April Fools (1969). She appeared on Broadway in You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water is Running, A Way of Life, and Paul Sills' Story Theatre.
It was in the Seventies that she appeared in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also appeared in the movies Bound for Glory (1976), Slap Shot (1977), F.I.S.T. (1978), and The Muppet Movie (1979). She guest starred on the shows The Jeffersons and Sara. She appeared on Broadway in Ovid's Metamorphoses.
In the Eighties Melinda Dillon played the mother in the holiday classic A Christmas Story (1983) and she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Absence of Malice (1981). She also appeared in the movies Songwriter (1984), Harry and the Hendersons (1987), Spontaneous Combustion (1989), Staying Together (1989), and Captain America (1990). On television she appeared in the mini-series Space. She guest starred on the TV shows The Mississippi, Insight, and The Twilight Zone.
In the Nineties she appeared in the movies The Prince of Tide (1991), Sioux City (1994), To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (1995), How to Make an American Quilt (1995), The Effects of Magic (1998), and Magnolia (1999). On television she appeared in the HBO movie State of Emergency, for which she was nominated for a CableACE award for Supporting Actress in a Movie or Miniseries. She guest starred on the TV shows The Client, Picket Fences, and Tracey Takes On.
In the Naughts she appeared in the Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation A Painted House. She guest starred on the TV shows Judging Amy, The Lyon's Den, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and Heartland. She appeared in the movies Cowboy Up (2001), Debating Robert Lee (2004), Adam & Steve (2005), and Reign Over Me (2007).
Melinda Dillon was an enormous talent. I have no doubt she will probably always be best remembered for A Christmas Story. This is not merely because of the film's ongoing popularity, but because she was so very good as Ralphie's sweet, fun loving mother who was still willing to wash Ralphie's mouth out with soap for saying a word that definitely wasn't "fudge." As iconic as Miss Dillon was in A Christmas Story, it is important to keep in mind that she played many, very different roles. She was lead character Tom Wingo's (Nick Nolte) suicidal sister Savannah in The Prince of Tides. In the HBO movie State of Emergency she was a woman who was overwrought at the death of her husband following an auto accident. In Absence of Malice she played Teresa Perrone, a devout Catholic who commits suicide after a newspaper story reveals she had an abortion. In To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar Miss Dillon played Merna, the operator of a beauty parlour who befriends the drag queens. Melinda Dillon was a wonderful actress who could play a wide variety of characters, from sweet, well-adjusted women to those bordering on a nervous breakdown.
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