Who could forget the piercing blue eyes and cherubic face of Ralphie as he salivated over the thought of having a Red Ryder BB Gun for Christmas? While actor Peter Billingsley would never be the same after his depiction of Shepherd’s nine-year-old alter ego, he was already a veteran in Hollywood, with TV shows and countless commercials under his belt - most memorably, his 1980s Hershey Chocolate Syrup commercials as “Messy Marvin.” Billingsley has been working in front of and behind the camera ever since. Survived by four children, McGavin died in 2006 at the age of 83 in Los Angeles. In the 1990s, he played Adam Sandler’s dad in Billy Madison. Along with acting in a number of Broadway and off-Broadway productions, McGavin also hopped onto the big screen with substantial parts in Summertime, The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell, and The Man With the Golden Arm before he landed his comedic role in A Christmas Story. In 1990 he won an Emmy for his comedic role as Candice Bergen’s father in Murphy Brown and also guest-starred in The X-Files. But long before McGavin made us choke and chortle in the holiday spirit, he had an extensive career in theater and in television, most notably in the 1950s role as crime-fighting detective Mike Hammer and as Carl Kolchak in the 1970s series Kolchack: The Night Stalker. No one looked at plastic leg lamps and the word “fragile” the same after Darren McGavin put his spin on them as the crotchety, curse-mumbling Old Man. Dillon was married and had a son with actor Richard Libertini, but the couple divorced in 1978. In 2005, Dillon guest starred on Law & Order: SVU, and two years later in TNT's Heartland. Besides her more memorable roles in A Christmas Story and Close Encounters, the 78-year-old actress has also appeared in Absence of Malice (for which she was nominated a second time for an Oscar), Harry and the Hendersons, The Prince of Tides, How to Make an American Quilt, and Magnolia. While Dillon started out in theater and was nominated for a Tony in her Broadway role for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, she found steady work on the big screen. However, you may also recall her more serious maternal role, in which she was nominated for an Oscar - Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. “Oh, Ralphie!” These are the words that you associate with Melinda Dillon when you think of her as the mop-headed, kooky mom of Ralphie and Randy. Let’s dig a little deeper to see where our favorite Christmas movie cast has been as of late: Mother (Melinda Dillon) Regardless of the film’s sleeper-hit status, most of the actors were already veterans in the business by the time they decided to take on their off-kilter, iconic roles and went on to lead successful careers in Hollywood. Decades after its 1983 release, it started garnering the kudos it deserved, with some critics ranking it as the top holiday film of all time. You’d think the round-the-clock TV marathons of Bob Clark’s comedy, A Christmas Story, would be as overwhelming as Ralphie Parker’s Pepto Bismol-colored bunny costume, but the nostalgia, hilarious absurdity and countless memorable scenes and quotes are all too joyfully addicting.īased on Jean Shepherd’s semi-autobiographical short stories, A Christmas Story surprisingly took some time to become the American mainstream classic that it is today.
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