Two-time Oscar winner Sally Field grew up in a working-class show-business family, the daughter of actress Margaret Field (nee Morian) and stepdaughter of actor and stuntman Jock Mahoney. (Field's mother and father, Army officer Richard Dryden Field, divorced when she was 4.)
After taking an interest in drama at Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, Field began her career as an actress as the star of the 1965 ABC television series "Gidget," in which she played a boy-crazy teenage surf bunny. Although the show was canceled after a single season, Field won over TV audiences and the network developed another show for her, "The Flying Nun," which ran for three seasons.
In the 1970s, Field studied at the Actors Studio with Lee Strasberg and expanded beyond her wholesome image, playing a woman with multiple-personality disorder in the TV movie "Sybil" (for which she won an Emmy), a runaway bride in "Smokey and the Bandit" (1977) and a resolute union organizer in "Norma Rae" (1979). That last performance earned Field her first Oscar, for best actress. She won a second Oscar playing a widow trying to hold on to her family's farm in the 1984 Depression-era drama "Places in the Heart."
Field also won Emmys in 2001 and 2007, for "ER" and "Brothers and Sisters," and was nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actress for playing Mary Todd Lincoln in the 2012 historical drama "Lincoln."
Field's other film credits include "Steel Magnolias," "Forrest Gump," "Mrs. Doubtfire," "Soapdish," "Kiss Me Goodbye," "Not Without My Daughter" and "The Amazing Spider-Man" and its sequel.
Field has three adult sons, from two marriages. She was married to Steven Craig, her high-school sweetheart, from 1968 to 1975, and film producer Alan Greisman from 1984 to 1993.
In January 2013, while receiving a lifetime achievement award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, Field said, "I didn’t back into becoming an actor — I was born one."
|
Year | Category | Work | |
---|---|---|---|
1979 | Best Actress | Norma Rae | Win |
1984 | Best Actress | Places in the Heart | Win |
2012 | Best Supporting Actress | Lincoln | Nomination |
Three thoughts about Sally Field
Share a thought about Sally Field