Actress Melinda Dillon, a two-time Oscar nominee best known for the movies A Christmas Story and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, has died, according to CNN, which cites a cremation service in Long Beach, California.
Adding that she was 83, the outlet says Dillon died January 9, according to Neptune Society, the cremation provider.
However, no cause of death was given and her death became widely known on Friday.
Dillon played the mother in A Christmas Story, a nostalgic look back at a boy longing for a toy rifle. It was released in 1983 and went on to find an annual holiday audience on video and TV.
Before that, she scored Oscar nominations as Best Supporting Actress twice.
In Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters, she searches for her little boy after aliens abduct him. And in Absence of Malice, she plays Paul Newman’s friend tormented by a reporter’s coverage of her abortion.
She also appeared in Slap Shot, Harry and the Hendersons, and Bound for Glory and episodes of TV series Judging Amy and Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.
