Matthew Raymond Dillon (born February 18, 1964) is an American actor. He has received various accolades, including an Academy Award nomination and Grammy nomination.
Dillon was raised in a close-knit Roman Catholic family of Irish descent in Mamaroneck, New York by homemaker Mary Ellen and Paul Dillon, a portrait painter and sales manager for toy bear manufacturer Union Camp.[3][4][5] Paul Dillon also was the long-time golf coach at Fordham University, having been enshrined in the school's Hall of Fame in 2019.[6][7][8][9] Dillon is the second of six children with one sister and four brothers, one of whom is actor Kevin Dillon. His paternal grandmother was the sister of comic strip artist Alex Raymond, the creator of Flash Gordon.[10]
In 1978, Jane Bernstein and a friend were helping director Jonathan Kaplan cast the teen drama Over the Edge when they found Dillon cutting class at Hommocks Middle School in Larchmont. Dillon auditioned for a role and made his debut in the film.[11] The film received a regional, limited theatrical release in May 1979, and grossed only slightly over $200,000.[12] Dillon's performance was well-received, which led to his casting in two films released the following year: the teenage sex comedy Little Darlings, in which Kristy McNichol's character loses her virginity to a boy from the camp across the lake, played by Dillon, and the more serious teen dramedyMy Bodyguard, where he played a high-school bully opposite Chris Makepeace. The films, released in March and July 1980, respectively, were box office successes[13] and raised Dillon's profile among teen audiences.
Another of Dillon's early roles was in the Jean ShepherdPBS special The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters.[14][15] The only available copies of this film are stored at UCLA, where a legal dispute makes it unavailable to the public.
One of his next roles was in Liar's Moon, where he played Jack Duncan, a poor Texas boy madly in love with a rich banker's daughter. In the early 1980s, Dillon also had prominent roles in three adaptations of S. E. Hinton novels: Tex (1982), The Outsiders (1983) and Rumble Fish (1983). All three films were shot in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Hinton's hometown. The Outsiders and Rumble Fish had Dillon working with Francis Ford Coppola and Diane Lane. He followed those up with The Flamingo Kid in 1984. He made his Broadway debut with the play The Boys of Winter[16] in 1985. Dillon did voiceover work in the 1987 documentary film Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam. In 1985, Dillon was namechecked in the lyrics of the Roger Daltrey song 'After The Fire' (written by Pete Townshend). In 1989, Dillon won critical acclaim for his performance as a drug addict in Gus Van Sant's Drugstore Cowboy.
^Dillon, Matt (August 6, 2005). "Behind the mask". London: The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on December 17, 2013. Retrieved September 11, 2010.
