Sally Field

Sally Margaret Field Bio

Sally Margaret Field (born November 6, 1946) is an American actress and producer whose career has spanned six decades across film, television, and theatre. She began on television in the 1960s with Gidget and The Flying Nun, earning her first Emmy for Sybil in 1977. Field won consecutive Academy Awards for Best Actress for Norma Rae (1979) and Places in the Heart (1984), establishing herself as a versatile dramatic performer. She later became a leading figure in television dramas like Brothers & Sisters (2006–2011), for which she won the Emmy, and she has continued to act in films such as Lincoln (2012) and 80 for Brady (2023). Field is known for her enduring presence, willingness to tackle challenging roles, and contributions as a producer and director.

Early Life and Background

Sally Margaret Field was born on November 6, 1946, in Pasadena, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. Her mother, Margaret Field, was an actress, and her father, Richard Dryden Field, was a pharmacist who served in the Army during World War II. Her parents divorced in 1950, and in 1952 her mother married the actor and stuntman Jock Mahoney. Field has said in her 2018 memoir that she was sexually abused by Mahoney throughout her childhood.

As a teen, Field attended Portola Middle School and Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, where she was a cheerleader. Her Birmingham High School class of 1964 included financier Michael Milken and talent agent Michael Ovitz, while actress Cindy Williams was a year behind Field. Field has also stated that when she was seventeen, she had an illegal abortion in Mexico, a difficult experience that influenced her later advocacy for women’s rights.

Path to Acting

Field got her start on television as the boy-crazy surfer girl in the ABC sitcom Gidget (1965–1966). The show was cancelled after a single season but became a belated success through summer reruns. Wanting to find a new starring vehicle for Field, ABC next produced The Flying Nun with Field as Sister Bertrille for three seasons, from 1967 to 1970. During her time on The Flying Nun, Field had a brief singing career, recording an album titled Star of The Flying Nun in 1967 and a number of singles.

After being typecast, Field had difficulty finding respectable roles. She starred in the 1971 ABC television film Maybe I’ll Come Home in the Spring and made several guest television appearances through the mid-1970s, including a role on the Western Alias Smith and Jones. In 1973, she was cast opposite John Davidson in the series The Girl with Something Extra, which aired from 1973 to 1974. Following the show’s cancellation, Field studied at the Actors Studio with acting teacher Lee Strasberg, who became a mentor and helped her move past her television image.

Sally Margaret Field Career

Early Career (1965–1976)

Soon after studying with Lee Strasberg, Field landed the title role in the 1976 television film Sybil, based on the book by Flora Rheta Schreiber. Her dramatic portrayal of a young woman afflicted with dissociative identity disorder earned her an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie in 1977 and enabled her to break through the typecasting of her sitcom work. She received further strong reviews for her work in the 1976 film Stay Hungry, opposite Jeff Bridges and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

During this same period, Field won the Best Female Performance Prize at the Cannes Film Festival for her work in Norma Rae. She also co-starred with Burt Reynolds, Jackie Gleason, and Jerry Reed in the year’s second-highest-grossing film, Smokey and the Bandit, in 1977, which introduced her to a wide mainstream audience.

Breakthrough (1977–1989)

In 1979, Field played the titular union organizer in Norma Rae, a film that established her as a dramatic actress. Vincent Canby, reviewing the film for The New York Times, wrote that Norma Rae is a seriously concerned contemporary drama, illuminated by some very good performances and one, Miss Field’s, that is spectacular. For her role, Field won the Academy Award for Best Actress. She appeared with Reynolds in three more films: The End, Hooper, and Smokey and the Bandit II.

In 1981, she continued to change her image, playing a foul-mouthed prostitute opposite Tommy Lee Jones in the South-set film Back Roads. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for the 1981 drama Absence of Malice and the 1982 comedy Kiss Me Goodbye. In the 1984 drama Places in the Heart, she starred as Edna Spalding, a farm widow struggling to weather the Great Depression, winning her second Golden Globe Award and second Academy Award for Best Actress. In 1985, she co-starred with James Garner in the romantic comedy Murphy’s Romance. For her role as matriarch M’Lynn in Steel Magnolias (1989), she was nominated for a 1990 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress.

Notable Works and Milestones

Beyond her Oscar-winning roles in Norma Rae and Places in the Heart, Field’s signature works include Smokey and the Bandit, Steel Magnolias, Mrs. Doubtfire, and Forrest Gump, in which she played Tom Hanks’s mother despite being only ten years his senior. She has been recognized with two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and three Primetime Emmy Awards, along with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2014 and the Kennedy Center Honor in 2019.

Sally Margaret Field Award Nominations

Sally Margaret Field has earned a wide range of major nominations across her six-decade career. In 2013, she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her widely praised portrayal of Mary Todd Lincoln in Steven Spielberg’s film Lincoln, which also brought her Golden Globe, BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild, and Critics’ Choice nominations. She was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her 2017 Broadway performance in The Glass Menagerie. Across her career, Field has received nine Primetime Emmy nominations, eleven Golden Globe nominations, and two BAFTA nominations, reflecting her consistent recognition by the industry.

Sally Margaret Field Awards Won

Field’s award-winning career began with her 1977 Emmy for Sybil and continued with her 1980 Academy Award for Best Actress for Norma Rae and her 1985 Academy Award for Best Actress for Places in the Heart. She also won the Best Female Performance Prize at the Cannes Film Festival for Norma Rae. On television, she won a 2007 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for Brothers & Sisters, and a 2001 Primetime Emmy for her role on ER. In 2014, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the National Medal of Arts, followed by the Kennedy Center Honor in 2019 and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2023.

Sally Margaret Field Family

Field was married to Steven Craig from 1968 to 1975, and the couple had two sons: Peter Craig, a novelist and screenwriter born in 1969, and Eli Craig, an actor and director born in 1972. From 1976 to 1980, Field had a well-known relationship with actor Burt Reynolds, and the couple co-starred in four films together. Field married her second husband, Alan Greisman, in 1984, and together they had one son, Sam Greisman, born in 1987. Field and Greisman divorced in 1994. Her brother, Richard Dryden Field Jr., is a physicist and academic.

Personal Life

Beyond her film and television work, Field has been a strong advocate for women’s rights, LGBT rights, and bone-health awareness. Diagnosed with osteoporosis in 2005, she created the Rally With Sally For Bone Health campaign to encourage early diagnosis through bone-density scans. Her youngest son, Samuel Greisman, is gay, and Field was honored with the Human Rights Campaign’s Ally for Equality Award in 2012. In 2019, Field was arrested during one of Jane Fonda’s Fire Drill Fridays climate change demonstrations in Washington, D.C., reflecting her ongoing commitment to public activism.