Sally Field Biography

Summary

"Sally Margaret Field" (born November 6, 1946) is an American actress. She became a household name at the age of 20 as Sister Bertrille in the 1960s sitcom "The Flying Nun". She has won two Oscars: one for "Norma Rae" in 1979, and another for "Places in the Heart" in 1984.

More recently, Field stars as Nora Holden Walker on the ABC drama "Brothers & Sisters", currently airing its third season, as the Walker family matriarch.

Early life

Sally Field was born in Pasadena, California, the daughter of Maggie, an actress, and Richard Dryden Field, who worked in sales. Her parents divorced in 1950 and her mother subsequently remarried to actor and stuntman Jock Mahoney.

She attended Portola Middle School, then Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, California where she was a cheerleader. Among her classmates were famed financier Michael Milken, fellow actress Cindy Williams (of "Laverne and Shirley" fame) and Michael Ovitz of CAA and Walt Disney Studios fame.

Career

Television

Field got her start on television as the boy-struck surfer girl in the mid-1960s surf culture sitcom series, "Gidget". She went on to star in her best-known television role as Sister Bertrille in "The Flying Nun". In an interview included on the DVD release of "The Flying Nun", she said that she would have preferred to continue playing Gidget. While starring on "The Flying Nun", Sally tried her hand at singing, releasing an album on Colgems Records in 1967. The same year, she cracked the Billboard Hot 100 with one single, "Felicidad". Later, she starred opposite John Davidson in a short-lived series called "The Girl with Something Extra".

She made several guest appearances, including a recurring role on the western comedy "Alias Smith and Jones", starring Pete Duel (with whom she had worked on "Gidget") and Ben Murphy, and the "Rod Serling's Night Gallery" episode, "Whisper".

Having played mostly comedic characters on television, Field had a difficult time being cast in dramatic roles. She studied with famed acting teacher Lee Strasberg, who had previously helped Marilyn Monroe go beyond the 'bimbo' roles with which "her" career had begun.

Soon afterward, Field landed the title role in the 1976 TV film "Sybil," the first of two films based on the book written by Flora Rheta Schreiber. Field's dramatic portrayal of Sybil, a young woman afflicted with multiple personality disorder, in the TV film not only garnered her an Emmy Award in 1977 but also enabled her to break through the typecasting she had experienced from her television sitcom roles.

Film

Field has enjoyed critical and commercial success in movies, particularly in the 1970s and '80s.

In 1977, she co-starred with Burt Reynolds, Jackie Gleason and Jerry Reed in that year's #2 grossing film, "Smokey and the Bandit."

In 1979, she played a union organizer in "Norma Rae," a successful film that established her status as a dramatic actress. Vincent Canby, in his review of the film for the "New York Times," wrote: "Norma Rae" is a seriously concerned contemporary drama, illuminated by some very good performances and one, Miss Field's, that is spectacular.' She won the Best Female Performance Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Field did three more of Reynolds' films ("The End", "Hooper" and "Smokey and the Bandit II"), none particularly an acting challenge. In 1981, Field continued to change her image, playing a foul-mouthed prostitute opposite Tommy Lee Jones in the South-set film "Back Roads," which received middling reviews and grossed $11 million at the box office.

She won Golden Globe nominations for the 1981 drama "Absence of Malice" and 1982 comedy "Kiss Me Goodbye".

Then came a second Academy Award in 1985 for her starring role in "Places in the Heart". Field's gushing acceptance speech is well-remembered for its earnestness. She said, 'I haven't had an orthodox career, and I've wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn't feel it, but this time I feel it, and I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!' The line ending in '...I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!' is often misquoted as simply 'You like me, you really like me!' which has subsequently been the subject of many parodies. (Field parodied the line herself in a commercial.)

Also in 1985, she co-starred with James Garner in the romantic comedy "Murphy's Romance." In A&E's biography of Garner, she cited her on-screen kiss with Garner as the best cinematic kiss she had ever had.

Field appeared on the cover of the March 1986 issue of "Playboy" magazine – she was the interview subject in that month's issue. She did not appear as a pictorial subject inside the magazine, although she did wear the classic leotard and bunny-ears outfit on the cover.

For her role as the matriarch, M'Lynn, in the film version of "Steel Magnolias" (1989), she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress. She had supporting roles in a number of other movies, including "Mrs. Doubtfire" (1993) in which she played the wife of Robin Williams and the love interest of Pierce Brosnan, followed by the role of Forrest's mother in "Forrest Gump" (1994). She is only 10 years older than Tom Hanks, with whom she had co-starred six years earlier in "Punchline."

Her other films in the '90s included "Not Without My Daughter", controversial suspense film, and "Soapdish", a comedy in which Field plays the pampered star of a television soap opera.

Recent roles

On television, Field had a recurring role on "ER" in the 2000–2001 season as Dr. Abby Lockhart's mother Maggie, who is struggling to cope with bipolar disorder, a role for which she won an Emmy Award in 2001. After her critically acclaimed stint on the show, she returned to the role in 2003 and 2006. She also starred in the very short-lived 2002 series "The Court".

Field has also ventured into the realm of directing. Her first directorial stint was for the television film, "The Christmas Tree" (1996). She also directed the feature film "Beautiful" (2000), as well as an episode of the TV mini-series, "From the Earth to the Moon" (1998).

Field was a late addition to the ABC drama "Brothers & Sisters", which debuted in September 2006. In the show's pilot, the role of matriarch Nora Walker had been played by actress Betty Buckley. However, the producers of the show decided to take the character of Nora in another direction, and Field was cast in the role. She won the 2007 Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in her role as Nora Walker.

Field recently had a voice role as Marina del Ray, the villain in Disney's "The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning", which was released in August 2008.

Currently, Field can be seen on television as the compensated spokesperson for Roche Laboratories' postmenopausal osteoporosis treatment medication, Boniva.

Political advocacy

During her acceptance speech for her 2007 Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, Field made an anti-war statement: 'If the mothers ruled the world, there would be no goddamn wars in the first place!' Though the crowd present at the Emmy awards heard it, the viewers at home only heard 'if mothers ruled the world there would be no', due to the censoring of the rest of the statement. That decision and the statement created considerable controversy.

In the 2008 presidential election, she supported Hillary Clinton in her bid for the Democratic nomination.

Personal life

Field married Steven Craig in 1968. The couple had two sons, Peter Craig, a novelist, and Eli, an actor and director. They divorced in 1975.

Field was romantically involved with Burt Reynolds for many years, during which time they co-starred in several movies, including "Smokey and the Bandit", "Smokey and the Bandit II", and "The End".

In 1984, she married film producer Alan Greisman. They had one son, Sam. Field and Greisman divorced in 1993.

On October 29, 1988, she and her family survived a crash after their charter plane lost power on takeoff.