Everything about Sally Field totally explained
Sally Margaret Field (born
November 6,
1946) is an
American two-time
Academy Award winning actress. She is also a three-time
Emmy Award winner and two-time
Golden Globe Award winner who became a household name at age 20 as Sister Bertrille in the
1960s sitcom The Flying Nun. She has won two Oscars, for
Norma Rae in 1979, and for
Places in the Heart in 1984.
More recently, Field stars as
Nora Holden Walker on the
ABC hit
drama,
Brothers & Sisters, as a grieving matriarch who helps out in the family business.
Biography
Early life
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
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, barefooted
surfer girl in the mid-1960s
surf culture sitcom series
Gidget. She then went on to star in her best known television role, as Sister Bertrille in
The Flying Nun. In an interview on the
Flying Nun DVD, she said that she'd have preferred to continue playing Gidget. Field also appeared in
The Girl with Something Extra. While starring on
The Flying Nun, Sally tried her hand at singing, releasing an album on
Colgems Records in 1967 and cracking the
Billboard Hot 100 with one single, "Felicidad", in 1967.
She had several guest appearances, including a recurring role on the western comedy
Alias Smith and Jones starring
Pete Duel (with whom she'd worked on
Gidget) and
Ben Murphy, and the
Rod Serling's Night Gallery episode "The Whisper."
Sybil
Having played mostly comic characters on television, Field had a difficult time being cast in dramatic roles. She studied with famed acting teacher
Lee Strasberg. Soon after, Field landed the title role in the 1976 TV film
Sybil.
Field's dramatic portrayal of Sybil, a young woman afflicted with
multiple personality syndrome in the TV film not only garnered her an
Emmy Award in 1977, but also enabled her to break through the typecasting she'd experienced from television roles.
Film
Field had a number of critical and commercial successes in movies, particularly in the 1980s.
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 starred as a union organizer in
Norma Rae, and won the
Best Female Performance Prize at the
Cannes Film Festival and the
Academy Award for Best Actress. In 1981, Field played a prostitute opposite
Tommy Lee Jones in the South-set comedy
Back Roads, which received middling reviews and grossed $11 million at the box office.
Field won another Academy Award in 1985 for her starring role in
Places in the Heart. Her gushing acceptance speech is well-remembered for its earnestness. In it, Field stated "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
Murphy's Romance. In A&E's biography of Garner, Field reported that her on-screen kiss with Garner was the best cinematic kiss she'd 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 didn't appear as a pictorial subject inside the magazine, although she did wear the classic
leotard and bunny ears "Bunny Outfit" on the cover).
She has had supporting roles in 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'd co-starred six years earlier in
Punchline.
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 also has an upcoming voice role as Marina del Ray the villain in
Disney's
The Little Mermaid III. This movie is scheduled for a direct-to-DVD release in 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." In the US,
Fox censored her, so that she was cut off at "god--", and didn't return to her speech. Fox also censored two other speakers, saying only that the content might be "considered inappropriate by some viewers".
Private life
Field dated
Burt Reynolds for many years. She married Steven Craig in 1968. The couple had two sons,
Peter Craig, a novelist, and Eli, an actor and director. They divorced in 1975.
In 1984, she married
film producer Alan Greisman. They had one son, Sam. The couple divorced in 1993.
Filmography
Film
Television
Further Information
Get more info on 'Sally Field'.
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