Sally Field

Infobox actor


imagesize = 200px
caption = Field at the 62nd Academy Awards ceremony, 1990
birthname = Sally Margaret Field
birthdate = birth date and age|1946|11|6
birthplace = Pasadena, California, USA
yearsactive = 1965 - present
occupation = actress, producer, director, screenwriter
spouse = Alan Greisman (1984–1993)
Steven Craig (1968–1975)
academyawards = Best Actress
1979 "Norma Rae"
1984 "Places in the Heart"
emmyawards = Outstanding Lead Actress - Miniseries or a Movie
1977 "Sybil"
Outstanding Guest Actress - Drama Series
2001 "ER"
Outstanding Lead Actress - Drama Series
2007 "Brothers & Sisters"
goldenglobeawards = Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
1979 "Norma Rae"
1984 "Places in the Heart"
awards = Best Actress Award (Cannes Film Festival)
1979 "Norma Rae"
KCFCC Award for Best Actress
1979 "Norma Rae"
LAFCA Award for Best Actress
1979 "Norma Rae"
NBR Award for Best Actress
1979 "Norma Rae"
NSFC Award for Best Actress
1979 "Norma Rae"
NYFCC Award for Best Actress
1979 "Norma Rae"

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 the Walker family matriarch.

Biography

Early life

Field was born in Pasadena, California, the daughter of Maggie, an actress, and Richard Dryden Field, who worked in sales. [ [http://www.filmreference.com/film/45/Sally-Field.html "Sally Field"] . Film Reference.com.] 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 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 would 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 had 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.Fact|date=December 2007 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 after, Field landed the title role in the 1976 TV film "Sybil," the first of two known to have been based on the book written by Flora Rheta Schreiber.

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 had 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."Fact|date=December 2007

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," praised Field, saying, "Norma Rae" is a seriously concerned contemporary drama, illuminated by some very good performances and one, Miss Field's, that is spectacular." [ [http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=980DE3D81139E732A25751C0A9659C946890D6CF] ] She 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. 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!" [ [http://www.littlereview.com/goddesslouise/articles/oscrpost.htm Oscar acceptance speech:] "Littlereview.com"] 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.Fact|date=December 2007) 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 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 "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 had 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 recently had a voice role as Marina del Ray, the villain in Disney's "", which was released in August of 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 Broadcasting [cite news |title=On TV, 'Extreme Caution' vs. Free Speech |work=ABC News |author=Marikar, Shelia |date=2007-09-18 |url=http://www.abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=3618536 |accessdate=2007-11-05]

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.

On October 29, 1988 she and her family survived a crash of their charter plane which lost power on takeoff. [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE6D81F3BF932A35752C1A96E948260 Sally Field in Jet Accident - New York Times ] ]

Filmography

Film

Television

References

External links

*imdb|0000398
*tvtome person|35537
* [http://media.fairfax.com.au/?rid=25309 Broadband video interview with Sally Field, talking about "Brothers & Sisters"]
* [http://www.twoweeksmovie.com "Two Weeks" movie site]

Persondata
NAME = Field, Sally
ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
SHORT DESCRIPTION = actress
DATE OF BIRTH = November 6, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH = Pasadena, California, U.S.
DATE OF DEATH =
PLACE OF DEATH =