SALLY FIELD Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

Biography » actors and actresses » sally field

SALLY FIELD

Name: Sally Margaret Field                                                         
Born: 6 November 1946 Pasadena, California, U.S.                                   
                                                                                   
Sally Margaret Field (born November 6, 1946) is a two-time Academy Award winning   
American 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 stars as Nora Holden Walker on the ABC hit     
drama, Brothers & Sisters, as a grieving matriarch who helps out in the family     
business.                                                                           
                                                                                   
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.                                                       
                                                                                   
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 (whom she worked with on Gidget)   
and Ben Murphy, and the Rod Serling's Night Gallery episode "The Whisper."         
                                                                                   
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 had experienced from     
television roles.                                                                   
                                                                                   
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 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.                                                               
                                                                                   
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.