Sally Field

Field with Joanne Woodward in Sybil (1976)

Field got her start on television as the boy-crazy surfer girl in the sitcom Gidget (1965–1966). The show was not an initial success and was cancelled after a single season; however, summer reruns garnered respectable ratings, making the show a belated success. Wanting to find a new starring vehicle for Field, ABC next produced The Flying Nun with Field cast as Sister Bertrille for three seasons, from 1967 to 1970.[6] In an interview included on the Season One DVD release, Field said that she thoroughly enjoyed Gidget but hated The Flying Nun because she was not treated with respect by the show's directors. Field was then typecast, finding respectable roles difficult to obtain. In 1971, Field starred in the ABC television film Maybe I'll Come Home in the Spring, playing a discouraged teen runaway who returns home with a bearded, drug-abusing hippie (played by David Carradine).[7][8] She made several guest television appearances through the mid-1970s, including a role on the Western Alias Smith and Jones, a popular series starring Gidget co-star Pete Duel.[9] She also appeared in the episode "Whisper" on the thriller Night Gallery.

In 1973, Field was cast in a starring role opposite John Davidson in the short-lived series The Girl with Something Extra that aired from 1973 to 1974.[10] Following the series' cancellation, Field studied at the Actors Studio with acting teacher Lee Strasberg. Strasberg became a mentor to Field, helping her move past her television image of the girl next door. During this period, Field divorced her first husband in 1975.[1][11][12]

Soon after studying with 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 Special Program – Drama or Comedy in 1977[13] and enabled her to break through the typecasting of her sitcom work.

In 1977, Field co-starred with Burt Reynolds, Jackie Gleason, and Jerry Reed in the year's second-highest-grossing film, Smokey and the Bandit.[14] In 1979, she 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: "Norma Rae is a seriously concerned contemporary drama, illuminated by some very good performances and one, Miss Field's, that is spectacular."[15] For her role in Norma Rae, Field won the Best Female Performance Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Field appeared with Reynolds in three more films: The End, Hooper, and Smokey and the Bandit II.[16] In 1981, she continued to change her image, playing a foul-mouthed prostitute opposite Tommy Lee Jones in the South-set film Back Roads.[17] She was nominated for a Golden Globe for the 1981 drama Absence of Malice and the 1982 comedy Kiss Me Goodbye.[18]

Then came a second Oscar for her starring role in the 1984 drama Places in the Heart.[19] Field's acceptance speech has since been both admired as earnest and parodied as excessive. She said, "Oh Benton, what you did for me. You changed my life, truly! This means so much more to me this time. I don't know why, I think the first time I hardly felt it because it was all so new. I owe a lot to the cast, to my players. To Lindsay and John and Danny, and Ed and Amy, and my little friends, Gennie and Yankton. I owe a lot to my family for holding me together and loving me and having patience with this obsession of me. But I want to 'thank you' to you. 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! (applause) Thank you!"[20] Field was making a humorous reference to dialog from her role in Norma Rae, but many people missed the connection.[21] Field later parodied herself when she delivered the line (often misquoted as "You like me, you really like me!")[22] in a Charles Schwab commercial.

In 1985, she co-starred with James Garner in the romantic comedy Murphy's Romance.[23] In A&E's biography of Garner, she cited her on-screen kiss with Garner as the best cinematic kiss she ever had. The following year, Field appeared on the cover of the March 1986 issue of Playboy magazine, in which she was the interview subject. She did not appear as a pictorial subject in the magazine, although she did wear the classic leotard and bunny-ears outfit on the cover. That year, she received the Women in Film Crystal Award.[24] For her role as matriarch M'Lynn in the film version of Steel Magnolias (1989), she was nominated for a 1990 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress.[25]

Field at the 1990 Academy Awards ceremony

Field had supporting roles in a number of other movies, including Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), in which she played the wife of Robin Williams's character and the love interest of Pierce Brosnan's character. She then played Tom Hanks's mother in Forrest Gump (1994), even though she was only 10 years older than Hanks, with whom she had co-starred six years earlier in Punchline.

Field's other 1990s films included Not Without My Daughter, a controversial thriller based on the real-life experience of Betty Mahmoody's escape from Iran with her daughter Mahtob; and Soapdish, a comedy in which she played a pampered soap-opera star and was joined by an all-star cast, including Kevin Kline, Whoopi Goldberg, Elisabeth Shue, and Robert Downey, Jr. In 1996, Field reprised her role as Sassy in Homeward Bound 2: Lost in San Francisco and later that year, she received the Berlinale Camera award at the 46th Berlin International Film Festival for her role as a grieving vigilante mother in director John Schlesinger's film Eye for an Eye.[26] In 1997, Field guest starred on the King of the Hill episode "Hilloween", in which she voiced religious woman Junie Harper, who contends with Hank Hill (Mike Judge) to ban Halloween. She co-starred with Natalie Portman in Where the Heart Is (2000), and appeared opposite Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde.

Field had a recurring role on ER in the 2000–2001 season as Dr. Abby Lockhart's mother, Maggie, who suffers from 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's directorial career began with the television film The Christmas Tree (1996).[27] In 1998, she directed the episode "The Original Wives' Club" of the critically acclaimed TV miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, also playing a minor role as Trudy, the wife of astronaut Gordon Cooper.[28] In 2000, she directed the feature film Beautiful.

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 was played by Betty Buckley.[29] However, the show's producers decided to take the character in another direction, and offered the part to Field, who won the 2007 Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her performance.[30] The drama also starred Calista Flockhart and Rachel Griffiths as Nora's adult daughters.[29] In November 2009, Field appeared on an episode of The Doctors to talk about osteoporosis and her Rally With Sally Foundation.

She portrayed Aunt May in the Marvel Comics films The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) as well as the 2014 sequel. Field's widely praised portrayal of Mary Todd Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's film Lincoln brought her Best Supporting Actress Award nominations at the Oscars, Golden Globes, BAFTA, and Screen Actors Guild.

On May 5, 2014, Field received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to motion pictures. Her star is located in front of the Hollywood Wax Museum.[31] In January 2015, it was announced that she would co-host TCM.[32] The same year, Field portrayed the titular character in Hello, My Name Is Doris, for which she was nominated for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress in a Comedy.

In 2017, Field reprised her role as Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie on Broadway at the Belasco Theatre. Performances began on February 7, 2017, in previews, and officially opened on March 9. The production closed on May 21, 2017. Field had previously played the role in the Kennedy Center production in 2004.[33] She was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance.[34] Her memoir, In Pieces, was published by Grand Central Publishing in September 2018.[35]

Field returned to episodic television in 2018, starring in the Netflix miniseries Maniac.[36] Subsequently, in 2020, Field starred in the AMC series Dispatches from Elsewhere.[37]

In 2022, it was announced that Field would be a co-star in an upcoming comedy movie entitled 80 for Brady, which would star NFL quarterback Tom Brady along with fellow actresses Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Rita Moreno. [38]

• "Felicidad" (Billboard No. 94, Cashbox No. 91) / "Find Yourself a Rainbow" – Colgems 1008 – August 1967
• "Follow the Star" (Both sides, promo only) – Colgems 107 – December 1967
• "Golden Days" / "You're a Grand Old Flag" – Colgems 1014 – January 1968
• "Gonna Build a Mountain" / "Months of the Year" (also features Flying Nun co-stars Madeleine Sherwood and Marge Redmond) – Colgems 1030 – September 1968

• Star of The Flying Nun—Colgems COM-106 (Mono) / COS-106 (Stereo) – Billboard No. 172, December 1967