Sure, she's the mom from A Christmas Story, but Melinda Dillon is a serious sci-fi/fantasy actress, born on this day in 1939 in Hope, Arkansas. She was nominated for a Tony for her role in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? on Broadway, but then …

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).

Also, the underrated Harry and the Hendersons (1987).

Dillon also had one of the greatest roles in the maybe-fantasy-maybe-not Magnolia (1999).

Tomorrow: Tank Girl and Q.