Sally Field Movies
Born November 6, 1946, in Pasadena, CA, actress Sally Field was the daughter of another actress, Margaret Field, who is perhaps best known to film buffs as the leading lady of the sci-fi The Man From Planet X (1951). Field's stepfather was actor/stunt man Jock Mahoney, who, despite a certain degree of alienation between himself and his stepdaughter, was the principal influence in her pursuit of an acting career. Active in high-school dramatics, Field bypassed college to enroll in a summer acting workshop at Columbia studios. Her energy and determination enabled her to win, over hundreds of other aspiring actresses, the coveted starring role on the 1965 TV series Gidget. Gidget lasted only one season, but Field had become popular with teen fans and in 1967 was given a second crack at a sitcom with The Flying Nun; this one lasted three seasons and is still flying around in reruns.Somewhere along the way Field made her film debut in The Way West (1967) but was more or less ignored by moviegoers over the age of 21. Juggling sporadic work on stage and TV with a well-publicized first marriage (she was pregnant during Flying Nun's last season), Field set about shedding her "perky" image in order to get more substantial parts. Good as she was as a reformed junkie in the 1970 TV movie Maybe I'll Come Home in the Spring, by 1972 Field was mired again in sitcom hell with the short-lived weekly The Girl With Something Extra. Freshly divorced and with a new agent, she tried to radically alter her persona with a nude scene in the 1975 film Stay Hungry, resulting in little more than embarrassment for all concerned. Finally, in 1976, Field proved her mettle as an actress in the TV movie Sybil, winning an Emmy for her virtuoso performance as a woman suffering from multiple personalities stemming from childhood abuse. Following this triumph, Field entered into a long romance with Burt Reynolds, working with the actor in numerous films that were short on prestige but long on box-office appeal.
By 1979, Field found herself in another career crisis: now she had to jettison the "Burt Reynolds' girlfriend" image. She did so with her powerful portrayal of a small-town union organizer in Norma Rae (1979), for which she earned her first Academy Award. At last taken completely seriously by fans and industry figures, Field spent the next four years in films of fluctuating merit (she also ended her relationship with Reynolds and married again), rounding out 1984 with her second Oscar for Places in the Heart. It was at the 1985 Academy Awards ceremony that Field earned a permanent place in the lexicon of comedy writers, talk show hosts, and impressionists everywhere by reacting to her Oscar with a tearful "You LIKE me! You REALLY LIKE me!" Few liked her in such subsequent missteps as Surrender (1987) and Soapdish (1991), but Field was able to intersperse them with winners such as the 1989 weepie Steel Magnolias and the Robin Williams drag extravaganza Mrs. Doubtfire (1993). Field found further triumph as the doggedly determined mother of Tom Hanks in the 1994 box-office bonanza Forrest Gump, which, in addition to mining box-office gold, also managed to pull in a host of Oscars and various other awards.
Following Gump, Field turned her energies to ultimately less successful projects, such as 1995's Eye for an Eye with Kiefer Sutherland and Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco (1996). She also did some TV work, most notably in Tom Hanks' acclaimed From the Earth to the Moon miniseries (1998) and the American Film Institute's 100 Years....100 Movies series. The turn of the century found Field contributing her talents to a pair of down-home comedy-dramas, first with a cameo matriarch role in 2000's Where the Heart Is and later that year as director of the Minnie Driver vehicle Beautiful. Both films met with near-universal derision from critics; only the Steel Magnolias-esque Heart found a modest box-office following.
In 2003, Field took a role alongside Reese Witherspoon in the legal comedy Legally Blonde 2: Red, White, & Bllonde, and in 2006 joined the cast of ABC’s Brothers & Sisters in the role of matriach Nora Walker. The role earned her an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 2007. The actress was cast in the role of Aunt May for The Amazing Spiderman (2012), and was so revered as Mary Todd Lincoln in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln that she earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1967
Future film director Henry Jaglom (Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?, Venice/Venice etc.) teams with future Oscar winner Sally Field in this episode of The Flying Nun. A mine cave-in has trapped Sr. Bertrille with escaped convict and self-avowed born loser Bill Watkins (Jaglom). All but oblivious to her own precarious plight, the spunky young nun endeavors to keep Bill's faith and hope alive while simultaneously seeking out an escape route. Written by Dorothy Cooper Foote, "The Dig In" was first telecast on December 14, 1967. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1967
After promising to keep her flying abilities under wraps, Sr. Bertrille is inadvertently whisked aloft by a sudden gust of wind. Her ascent is witnessed by Charlie Webster (Brian Nash), a little boy with a history of telling big lies. How can Sr. Bertrille keep Charlie from getting into trouble while staying out of trouble herself? Featured in the cast of this episode are Dick Wilson (aka Mr. Whipple of Charmin Bathroom Tissue fame) and "lovable lush" Foster Brooks. Originally telecast on November 23, 1967, "A Young Man With a Coronet" was written by Bernard Slade. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1967
Sr. Bertrille is among the travelers taking a pack-mule trip into the mountain community of Santa Thomasina. Upon her arrival, the exuberant little nun is confused by the residents' eccentric behavior. It turns out that the locals are convinced that Sr. Bertrille is their patron saint. Trouble arises when a rival village insists that our heroine is their saint, and are willing to fight over the matter. Written by James Henerson, "The Patron of Santa Thomasina" first aired on November 30, 1967. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Senator William J. Tadlock (Kirk Douglas) enlists the help of veteran scout Dick Summers (Robert Mitchum) to lead a wagon train of settlers from Missouri to Oregon in this plodding, routine western. A scared settler accidently shoots an Indian boy who is mistaken for a wolf, prompting Summers to order newlywed triggerman Johnny Mack (Michael Witney) to be hanged to avoid an Indian attack. Sally Field appears in her first big-screen role as the slatternly Mercy McBee. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
- Starring:
- Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, (more)
The two-part opening episode of The Flying Nun introduces Sister Bertrille (Sally Field), a spunky young American novice stationed at Convent San Tanco in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Not long after discovering that her light weight and her winglike coronet enable her to take flight whenever the trade winds blow, Sr. Bertrille earns the undying gratitude of local bistro owner Carlos Ramirez (Alejandro Rey) by helping him collect an old gambling debt -- which he promptly donates to the convent. In subsequent episodes, Sr. Bertrille tries to keep her flying abilities under wraps on the orders of her superiors, the Reverend Mother (Marge Redmond) and Sister Jacqueline (Madeleine Sherwood), but the dictates of the various plotlines just plain won't let her do so. The best of the first-season episodes include "Flight of a Dodo Bird," guest-starring John Astin as a young priest-psychologist who is convinced that the Reverend Mother's tales of a flying nun are signs that the old dear is a few bricks shy of a full load; "Days of Nuns and Roses," in which Sr. Bertrille and the other nuns begin selling "sea-grape juice" to raise funds; "The Dig In," featuring future "alternative" filmmaker Henry Jaglom as an embittered derelict who is trapped with Sr. Bertrille in a cave-in; "With a Friend Like Him," wherein our heroine comes to the rescue of hopeless bumbler Brother Paul (Rich Little); "My Sister, the Sister," in which Carlos falls in love with Sr. Bertrille's obstetrician sister, Jennifer (Elinor Donahue); and "Reconversion of Sister Shapiro," which finds Sr. Bertrille gently attempting to dissuade a Jewish girl from renouncing her religion and joining the convent. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sally Field, Marge Redmond, (more)
Gidget began life as a novel by Frederick Kohner, who used his own teenage daughter as inspiration. The novel was filmed in 1958 with Sandra Dee as California high-schooler Francie Lawrence, known to her friends as "Gidget" because of her diminutive size ("girl midget"). According to both novel and film, Gidget lived only for surfing and boys, in that order. The property proved popular enough to yield two additional theatrical features, with Deborah Walley and Cindy Carol succeeding Sandra Dee in the title role. Finally in 1965, Gidget was transformed into a weekly, half-hour ABC sitcom starring a 19-year-old newcomer named Sally Field. Fifteen-and-a-half-year-old Gidget narrated most of the episodes, in which she spent the bulk of her time swimming and surfing off the California coast and hanging out with her best friend Larue (Lynnette Winter). Don Porter co-starred as Gidget's widowed father, Professor Russ Lawrence, who would have preferred that his daughter spend more time with her schoolwork and less time on the high waves. Others in the regular cast included Betty Conner as Gidget's overprotective older sister Anne, Peter Deuel as Anne's bookish psychology-student husband John Cooper, and Mike Nader as another of Gidget's surfing chums, Peter "Siddo" Stone. The Gidge's steady boyfriend Moon Doggie, aka Jeff Matthews (played by Steven Miles), wasn't seen too often because he was away at college. Although Gidget posted respectable ratings, it ran only for one season, from September 15, 1965 through September 1, 1966. Reportedly, its cancellation came about because ABC had decided to pick up only one of its Screen Gems-produced sitcoms for renewal, and that one was the proven favorite Bewitched. However, Gidget performed extremely well in off-network syndication, its 32 episodes remaining in active circulation well into the late '70s. Later incarnations of the Gidget package starred such actresses as Karen Valentine and Monie Ellis; and in 1986, a long-overdue sequel to the original TV series, The New Gidget, debuted in syndication, starring Caryn Richman as the now-grown, now-married Francie "Gidget" Lawrence. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sally Field, Don Porter, (more)
- 1965
Bubbly newcomer Sally Field became an instant star by virtue of her vivacious interpretation of the title character in the delightful half-hour sitcom Gidget. Although only one season's worth of episodes were filmed, they were enough to launch Field into a spectacular show-business career, which would eventually yield a brace of Academy Awards. In Gidget, the actress is seen as 15 1/2 year surfing enthusiast Francie "Gidget" Lawrence, whose wholesome misadventures with her beach-nut friends cause no end of trouble for her stern but loving widowed father, Prof. Russ Lawrence (Don Porter). As with many another 1960s sitcom, Gidget offers contemporary viewers the opportunity to see a number of stars-in-the-making in some of their earliest appearances. Among the prominent actors showing up in the series' 32 episodes are Martin Milner in the episode "The Great Kahuna," Judy Carne in "Is It Love or Symbiosis?" Barbara Hershey in "Chivalry Isn't Dead," Walter Koenig in "Gidget's Foreign Policy," Daniel J. Travanti in "Now There's a Face," Bonnie Franklin in "Too Many Cooks," and another future Oscar-winner, Richard Dreyfuss, in "Ego a-Go-Go." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sally Field, Don Porter, (more)
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