Among her many other acting roles, Melinda Dillon played the mother in two very well known American films, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and A Christmas Story. As these things work out, Alabama connections abound. Close Encounters did lots of filming in the Mobile area, and A Christmas Story was directed by Bob Clark, who spent some of his childhood in the state. "Where I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, we were lower middle class, but we actually had a maid. I used to go with the maid on weekends to what would have been called 'Coloured Town' to play with the kids there—I loved them," he noted in a phone interview not long before his 2007 death in a car crash. Finally, Dillon herself spent some of her childhood in Cullman. Let's investigate.
According to her entry in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, Dillon was born October 13, 1939, in the town of Hope. "Information about her early life is sparse, and Dillon remains an intensely private person." The IMDB and Wikipedia repeat this information about her birth. I'll come back to all this later in the post.
Her career began on stage. She was a member of the improvisational troupe The Second City in Chicago in 1961. Alumni of that group include a roster of stars such as Alan Alda, Bill Murray and John Belushi. The following year she made her Broadway debut in the original production of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? alongside Uta Hagan, Arthur Hill and George Grizzard. Dillon was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Tony award for her performance. By 1971 she had made a few more appearances on Broadway.
In the 1960's she also had guest roles on such TV shows as The Defenders, East Side/West Side and Bonanza. Since then she has alternated television work with films including Bound for Glory (1976), Slap Shot (1977), Absence of Malice (1981), Harry and the Hendersons (1987), The Prince of Tides (1991) and Magnolia (1999). Her final work seems to be three episodes in the Treat Williams TV medical drama Heartland in 2007. The Wikipedia entry for the recent sequel A Christmas Story Christmas noted that she retired in that year and thus did not participate in the film.
OK, let's dig a little deeper into her family background for that Alabama connection. Her parents were Floyd Cardy, Jr. [March 22, 1912-August 14, 1978] and Essie Norine Barnett [April 15, 1915-February 16, 2006]. Floyd was a Jonesboro, Arkansas, native; Norine was born in Cullman. The two were married in Alabama City, Etowah County, on July 1, 1937. I found this information in U.S. Census and marriage records at Ancestry.com
Dillon gave a rare interview with Robert Wahls in conjunction with her Broadway debut that was published in the New York Daily News on October 28, 1962 [Sec. 1, p. 16]: "90-Day Wonder: An Unknown Only Three Months Ago, 23-year-old Actress Melinda Dillon Shot to Stardom in Broadway Debut" In it she notes that her father Fred Clardy was an oil company representative working out of Cullman, where her mother ran a beauty shop.
In the Wahls interview Dillon claims the Hope, Arkansas, birthplace because "daddy knew a doctor there and mother had lost one baby." Her parents divorced when she was five, and her mother did not remarry until May 17, 1947, in the town of Lipscomb in Jefferson County. Dillon's stepfather was Wilbur Samuel Dillon, whom she described as a provost marshal in the military police. The family spent 1948-1951 in Nurnberg, Germany, and moved often after that posting. At some point they settled in Chicago, where Melinda graduated from Hyde Park High School. She decided to remain in the Windy City when her parents moved again.
We find a few more details about Dillon's father Fred Clardy, Jr., at his Find-A-Grave page. That source notes he was a World War II vet who worked as district manager for Alabama for the AMOCO company. Presumably after his divorce from Norine he returned to Arkansas, where he owned the Clardy Oil Company in Hot Springs, and where he is buried.
The Clardy family appears in Cullman in the 1940 U.S. census. Presumably Fred and Norine [spelled Norene on the census sheet] had moved there sometime after their 1937 marriage in Etowah County. Perhaps as a district manager Floyd could live where he wanted in that area, and after all Cullman was Norine's home town. Why they were married in Alabama City also remains a mystery.
Other mysteries appear. The census enumerator, who questioned the family on May 2, 1940, listed Melinda Ruth as being seven months old, which fits her October 13, 1939, birth date. However, the birthplace is listed as "Alabama". So we are left to wonder about Dillon's actual birthplace.
Norine and daughter Melinda did live in the state until Norine's second marriage in 1947. Why the nuptials took place in Lipscomb, a town near Bessemer, is unknown. Norine died in 2006 in Leavenworth, Kansas. I have been unable to find any more information so far about Dillon's stepfather.
UPDATE 5 February 2023
Dillon passed away on January 9, 2023. An article reviewing her career from The Hollywood Reporter can be found here.
Dillon in Close Encounters. She was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for this performance.
