Actress Sally Field, winner of numerous awards including the Academy, Emmy, and Golden Globes, is well-known for her parts in the films Forrest Gump, Brothers and Sisters, Lincoln, and Steel Magnolias.In 1965, the 76-year-old actress made her film debut in the title role of “Gidget.” She has since starred in a number of Broadway productions, TV series, and motion pictures. Field has also been vocal about her struggles personally. She discusses being sexually abused by her stepfather as well as her battles with loneliness, despair, and self-doubt in her 2018 memoir “In Pieces.”
The Beginning of Her Career
On November 6, 1946, Sally Field was born in Pasadena, California. Margaret Field (née Morlan), an actress, was her mother, and Richard Dryden Field worked as a salesman. Her mother married stuntman and actor Jock Mahoney following the divorce of her parents. Sally has a half-sister named Princess O’Mahoney and a brother named Richard Field.[1]
Her Personal Life
In 1968, Sally Field wed Steven Craig; the couple had two boys, Peter and Eli. She married Alan Greisman in 1984 after they split up in 1975. Samuel was their only child together, and they divorced in 1994. She dated Burt Reynolds from 1976 to 1980; she writes about the rocky relationship in her memoir. She describes his domineering demeanor and how he talked Field out of going to the Emmys, where she won for “Sybil.”Reynolds indeed passed away shortly before the publication of her book, and in his 2015 memoir “But Enough About Me,” he referred to their failed romance as “the biggest regret of my life.”[3]
Prior to his death, Fields said that they had not communicated in thirty years. She clarified, “He was not someone I could be around.” “He was simply not a good fit for me at all. Additionally, he had somehow created the illusion that I was more significant to him than he had previously believed, even though I wasn’t. All he wanted was the thing that he was without. Simply put, I didn’t want to handle that.
Looking back, Field connected the dots between her relationship with her stepfather and her relationship with Reynolds, characterizing the latter as “really complicated and hurtful to me, and not without loving and caring.” She also discusses the abuse she endured from her stepfather, who would often call her to his room when she was fourteen, in her memoir.She stated, “I felt like a child, helpless, and not a child.”Strong. Power was this. And I was the owner of it. Nevertheless, I yearned to be a youngster.[4]
Field later learned that although her husband had lied and claimed it had only happened once while he was intoxicated, her mother had been aware of the abuse for the entire time. Field wrote the memoir following the death of her mother, narrating to her that it was “all through my childhood.”It was the only way I could possibly locate the missing bits of my mother. I needed to understand her, if not forgive her, because I couldn’t until I realized that. In order to forgive her, I composed the book.[5]
Sally Field Today
Sally Field plays computer games with her grandchildren in the TV room where she currently keeps her Oscars and Emmys. Given that her films “Spoiler Alert” and “80 for Brady” are coming out in 2023 and next week, respectively, Field does not appear to be planning to retire just yet.
Her friend and “Lincoln” director Steven Spielberg said of her, “As an actor, she dared this town to typecast her, and then simply broke through every dogmatic barrier to find her own way — not to stardom, which I imagine she’d decry, but to great roles in great films and television.” She has “survived our ever-changing culture, stood the test of time, and earned this singular place in history through her consistently good taste and feisty persistence.”
