1952: Sally Field, her stepfather Jock Mahoney, her mother Margaret Field, and her brother Rick Field.
Gallery of Sally Field
Gallery of Sally Field
Gallery of Sally Field
Gallery of Sally Field
Gallery of Sally Field
Gallery of Sally Field
Gallery of Sally Field
College/University
Gallery of Sally Field
Gallery of Sally Field
Career
Gallery of Sally Field
1944
Danny Glover and Sally Field as Moze and Edna in the 1994 motion picture Places in the Heart. (PhotoFest)
Gallery of Sally Field
1960
1960s: Sally Field began her career in TV sitcoms and went on to receive two Academy Awards for Best Actress.
Gallery of Sally Field
1965
1965: Sally Field and future husband Steven Craig at a Hollywood premiere. They were married from 1968 to 1975.
Gallery of Sally Field
1965
1965: 19-year-old Sally Field in her role as a boy-crazy surfer girl in the television sitcom Gidget.
Gallery of Sally Field
1978
1978: Sally Field won the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance as a textile worker in Norma Rae. (Bettman)
Gallery of Sally Field
1994
1994: Sally Field as Mrs. Gump in the Oscar-winning classic film Forrest Gump.
Gallery of Sally Field
2008
Sally Field describes the struggles of her early career at the 2008 International Achievement Summit in Hawaii.
Gallery of Sally Field
2008
Awards Council member and Oscar-winning actress Sally Field presents the Golden Plate Award to Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys at the 2008 International Achievement Summit in Kona-Kailua, Hawaii.
Awards Council member and Oscar-winning actress Sally Field presents the Golden Plate Award to Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys at the 2008 International Achievement Summit in Kona-Kailua, Hawaii.
Sally Field is an American actress known for playing firebrands and steely matriarchs.
Background
Sally Field was born on November 6, 1946, in Pasadena, California, to Margaret Field (née Morlan; an actress) and Richard Dryden Field. Her father was an army officer. Following her parents' 1950 divorce, her mother married actor and stuntman Jock Mahoney. Through her maternal grandmother's genealogical line, Field is a descendant of a Mayflower passenger and colonial governor William Bradford, her tenth great-grandfather.
Education
As a teen, Field attended Portola Middle School and Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, where she was a cheerleader. Her classmates included financier Michael Milken, actress Cindy Williams, and talent agent Michael Ovitz. After finishing up at Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, California, Field attended an acting workshop at Columbia Studios, which helped launch her film and television career.
Reconnecting to her craft, Field studied acting at the Actors Studio with famed teacher Lee Strasberg. Strasberg became a powerful mentor, encouraging Field to move away from her goody-two-shoes television image.
Sally landed the leading role in the television series Gidget, which was based on the popular 1959 Sandra Dee film by the same name. Field was only 18 years old when the series debuted in the fall of 1965. Petite and perky, she played a teenager on a quest to find fun with her best friend Larue (played by Lynette Winter). The show was canceled after one season, but Field became popular with television audiences — so popular, in fact, that the network created another series for her. The Flying Nun starred Field as Sister Bertrille, a nun so light that she could take flight. Field didn't want to take the part, but her stepfather insisted, telling her, "If you turn down this part, you may never work again."
The Flying Nun premiered in September 1967, and soon became a huge hit. Viewers seemed to enjoy following the misadventures of quirky, aerodynamic Sister Bertrille. Behind the scenes, however, Field was miserable. She struggled with the feeling that she would never be considered a serious actress, and the show only magnified that fear. The show was canceled in 1970, after three seasons on the air.
Field returned to acting in 1973 with the short-lived sitcom The Girl with Something Extra. Field played a young newlywed with ESP on the show, which lasted only one season. After several auditions, Field landed a role in 1976's bodybuilding film Stay Hungry with Jeff Bridges and Arnold Schwarzenegger. She co-starred as a party girl, a far cry from the innocent characters she played on the small screen. That same year, Field entered a new phase of her career with the television movie Sybil. She showed great emotional range as a woman with multiple-personality disorder, winning her first Emmy Award for her work on the TV film. Returning to the big screen, Field appeared in 1977's Smokey and the Bandit, playing a runaway bride who catches a ride from a trucker (played by Bert Reynolds). Field and Reynolds became romantically involved on the set of film, and starred together in several light-hearted comedies, including 1978's Hooper and 1980's Smokey and the Bandit II.
It was a dramatic role that brought Field her first Academy Award. In 1979, she starred as a gutsy, determined mill worker who tries to unionize her workplace in Norma Rae. Field received raves for her performance and netted the Best Actress Oscar, beating out the likes of Jane Fonda, Marsha Mason, Jill Clayburgh, and Bette Midler. She continued to take on dramatic fare, starring opposite Paul Newman in 1981's Absence of Malice. In the film, Field played a ruthless journalist.
Re-teaming with Jeff Bridges, Field starred in the 1982 romantic comedy Kiss Me Goodbye as a widow trying to rebuild her life. Her character is haunted by her late husband's ghost (played by James Caan), who does not approve of her new love interest. For her work on the film, Field was nominated for a Golden Globe Award.
Field then starred in the 1984 historical drama Places in the Heart, as a widow struggling to keep her family's farm during the Great Depression. The film featured a strong supporting cast, including John Malkovich, Lindsay Crouse, Danny Glover and Ed Harris, and received strong reviews. Nominated for seven Academy Awards, the film won two — one for writing, and one for Field as Best Actress. Field was just as thrilled to be winning her second Academy Award as she was for her first, perhaps even more so.
Field's career continued to thrive with leading roles in 1985's Murphy's Romance with James Garner and 1988's Punchline. As part of an all-star cast, she appeared in the 1989 Southern drama Steel Magnolias, which included Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine, Daryl Hannah, Olympia Dukakis, and a young starlet named Julia Roberts. Field later produced the 1991 drama Dying Young, which starred Roberts.
In the 1990s, Field took on more character and supporting roles. She played Robin Williams' estranged wife in the family comedy Mrs. Doubtfire and Tom Hanks' mother in the 1994 whimsical hit Forest Gump. She also produced and starred in the 1995 television miniseries A Woman of Independent Means, the story of one woman's life journey during the early 20th century. Continuing to work behind the scenes, she directed and wrote the 1996 holiday television movie The Christmas Tree, which starred Julie Harris.
Field next directed the 2000 film Beautiful, which starred Minnie Driver as a ruthless beauty queen. Returning to series television, Field won accolades for her recurring role on the hit drama ER, playing the bipolar mother of one of the doctors. Field's nuanced performance earned her another Emmy Award — this time for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series in 2001.
In 2002, Field fulfilled a personal dream by starring on Broadway in Edward Albee's The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?. She then had a supporting role on the 2003 big-screen comedy Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde starring Reese Witherspoon. Before long, Field was contemplating a return to series television. She found great success with the family drama Brothers & Sisters, playing the matriarch of the Walker family. The show resonated with Field's own values, saying it "is all about a dysfunctional family whose members deeply love each other and are bonded together. My whole life is about family," Field told the Saturday Evening Post. She won her third Emmy Award for her portrayal of Nora Walker in 2007.
After Brothers & Sisters went off the air in 2011, Field returned to the big screen. She had a supporting role in the summer blockbuster The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) starring Andrew Garfield. In the film, Field played Peter Parker's beloved Aunt May. That fall, Field tackled the role of one of American history's least popular first ladies. She co-starred with Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln, with Day-Lewis as the beloved president Abraham Lincoln and Field as his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Robert Todd Lincoln in the film. Field reprised the role of Aunt May in 2014's The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and that same year received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2016, Field starred in the quirky May-December romantic comedy Hello, My Name Is Doris.
2017 marked a return to the stage and the small screen for Field. On Broadway, she reprised her role as Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie and was later nominated for a Tony. In October Field signed on to join Emma Stone, Jonah Hill and Justin Theroux in the Netflix dark comedy Maniac, adapted from the 2014 Norwegian series that shares the same name.
Sally's real father was Catholic, but she has issues with all religions.
Politics
Field is an advocate for women's rights. She has served on the board of directors of Vital Voices Global Partnership, an international women's NGO, and has co-hosted the Global Leadership Awards six times. A Democrat, Field supported Hillary Clinton's bid for the Democratic Party nomination in the 2008 presidential election.
Views
Field is also an advocate for gay rights and won the Human Rights Campaign's Ally for Equality Award in 2012. Her youngest son, Sam, is openly gay.
Quotations:
"It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else's eyes."
"My agent said, ’You aren’t good enough for movies.’ I said, ’You’re fired.’"
"I think that's very sad, that I haven't allowed my heart to be broken. I have broken a few."
"Last year I was diagnosed with osteoporosis. I was over 50, Caucasian, thin, small-framed, and I have it in my genetic history. It was almost a slam-dunk."
Membership
She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Personality
Exceptionally creative and original, Sally possesses a touch of the unusual. Her approach to problems is unique and she has the courage to wander from the traditional templates of thoughts and deeds.
Physical Characteristics:
Sally Field is 5’2” tall and does not weigh more than one hundred pounds. For her role in Lincoln the actress was required to gain twenty five pounds. This weight gain resulted in the actress having damage to her knees. She had knee surgery as a result of this condition.
In 2005 Field was diagnosed with osteoporosis. Her diagnosis led her to create the "Rally with Sally for Bone Health" campaign with support from Roche and GlaxoSmithKline that controversially co-promoted Boniva, a bisphosphonate treatment for osteoporosis. Field's campaign encouraged the early diagnosis of such conditions through technology such as bone-density scans.
Interests
Politicians
Hillary Clinton
Music & Bands
She decided to give singing a try while acting in the movie “The Flying Nun”. She went on to sing “Who Needs Wings To Fly” which was the theme song of the movie. Her hit single “Felicidad” even made it to the Billboards top 100.
Connections
Field was married to Steven Craig from 1968 to 1975. During their marriage, the couple had two sons: Peter Craig (born 1969), a novelist, and Eli Craig (born 1972), an actor and director.
In the late 1970s, Field had a relationship with Burt Reynolds, during which time they co-starred in several films, including Smokey and the Bandit, Smokey and the Bandit II, The End and Hooper.
On October 29, 1988, at Aspen-Pitkin County Airport in Colorado, Field and three members of her family were in a private plane owned by media mogul Merv Griffin when it lost power and aborted takeoff, slamming into parked aircraft. They all survived with minor injuries.
After the end of her relationship with Reynolds, Field married second husband Alan Greisman in 1984. Together they had one son, Sam, in 1987. Field and Greisman divorced in 1993.
1985, Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama - Places in the Heart (1984)
1980, Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama - Norma Rae (1979)
1985, Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama - Places in the Heart (1984)
1980, Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama - Norma Rae (1979)
2007, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series - Brothers & Sisters (2006)
2001, Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series - ER (1994)
1977, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama or Comedy Special - Sybil (1976)
2007, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series - Brothers & Sisters (2006)
2001, Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series - ER (1994)
1977, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama or Comedy Special - Sybil (1976)