The Stunning Transformation Of Sally Field

The following article contains mentions of child abuse.

Few stars in Hollywood can say they've had a career for as long as Sally Field. The star of iconic films like "Mrs. Doubtfire" and "Soapdish" has done a bit of everything, racking up awards for her work in both television shows and movies. Her career has been one of constant transformation, which Field told NPR she sees as a natural part of the human experience. "Our task in life is to constantly transition from one stage into another, whether it's toddlerhood into childhood into adolescence, and then young adulthood and then middle age. It's just constant movement," Field reflected.

"Constant movement" is the perfect way to describe her career. Field burst onto the scene as a fresh-faced teenager, experienced relationships in the spotlight, found her way behind the camera, and cemented her status as a Hollywood legend, all thanks to her need to find new ways to challenge herself and her art. "As I head into this big part of my life, you say, 'How do I embrace my 70s?'" she told NPR. "What is there of me that I haven't experienced yet?"

As Sally Field continues to find new aspects of life to experience, we're exploring her illustrious career and stunning transformation.

In 1965, Sally Field won the role that launched her into stardom. For 32 episodes between 1965 and '66, she played the titular character on "Gidget," the television adaptation of the iconic movie series. However, Field doesn't look at the series as her big "break." Instead, she felt it was only a continuation of the work she was doing in her high school drama department. "You call that a turn in the road," she told Yahoo! "That's a fork in the road that changes your existence. That's not a break."

The series was canceled after only one season, but Field quickly landed yet another iconic part that would keep her working for several more years. In "The Flying Nun," Field played Sister Bertrille, a nun whose winged habit gives her the ability to soar in the wind. However, Field didn't love that role, either. "It was during the sixties when my whole generation was running around naked and eating granola and God knows what," she recalled, wanting to be out there going to college and protesting the war in Vietnam with other people her age. Instead, she viewed her time on "The Flying Nun" as an education. "I learned survival techniques," she said. "I learned little exercises to keep myself from tearing my hair out because it was so boring."

Looking to once again shake up her image after starring in "Sybil," Sally Field found the perfect co-star to help shed her cutesy reputation and her ugly one. "I thought if I did a movie with Burt [Reynolds] and he thought I was cute, then somebody else might think I was cute and I could continue acting," she told O, The Oprah Magazine.

However, Sally Field admitted she hated locking lips with Burt Reynolds on the big screen. Field and Reynolds acted together in four movies in the '70s, including "The End" and "Hooper" in addition to the "Smokey and the Bandit" films. In an appearance on "Watch What Happens Live" in 2022, Field said Reynolds was her worst on-screen kiss. "It just was not something he really did very well," she laughed.

However, Reynolds' lackluster kissing skills didn't stop Field from striking up an off-screen relationship with the hunky actor. They dated on and off for years, and in a 1979 interview with People, Field described their relationship as a fun one despite all the pressure. "We just forget everything and giggle a lot," she said. Nevertheless, when Reynolds later called her the love of his life, Field demurred. "He had somehow invented in his rethinking of everything that I was more important to him than he had thought, but I wasn't," she told Variety.

After fighting so hard through the early part of her career to be taken seriously as an actor, Sally Field made the transition in the early 1990s into acting in family-friendly films. She voiced a cat named Sassy in the "Homeward Bound" films and played Forrest Gump's mother with Tom Hanks in 1994. And even though there are things only adults notice about "Mrs. Doubtfire" with Robin Williams, Sally Field became a favorite actor among millennials everywhere when she played Miranda Hillard.

As she told Yahoo!, the latter role was especially fun to film because she got along with Williams so well. "There was this thing with Robin that he always tried to make me laugh. Everybody was always breaking up in the scene, falling apart in the scene because Robin was always improvising," she said, claiming that she resisted his attempts to break her. "He [was a] spectacular human, even more than his humor to me was Robin himself."

In her memoir, "In Pieces," Field admitted that her marriage to Alan Greisman fell apart around the time of "Mrs. Doubtfire" citing restlessness as the reason. "Even as I tried to evolve into each phase of my career ... this whispering voice kept repeating that before long I'd be facing the same mountain that I had just climbed, but without the strength to move anymore," she wrote.

By 2005, Sally Field had to contend with something new: aging. That year, she received an osteoporosis diagnosis, which wasn't necessarily a surprise. "I was over 50, Caucasian, thin, small-framed, and I have it in my genetic history," she told HealthDay. "It was almost a slam-dunk."

Using her profile for good, Field became an advocate for people with the bone condition. Speaking with WebMD, Field explained that a bone scan had revealed she had the disease. "My bones appeared to be getting steadily thinner without any signs or symptoms I could see or feel," she said. 

As a result, Field appeared in a series of ads for Boniva, an osteoporosis medication. She told WebMD that she was initially hesitant, but the medication genuinely seemed to have helped slow the effects of osteoporosis in her case. "Aging successfully isn't just about looking good, it's about having a good solid feeling about your health and yourself as a healthy person," she said. The ad campaign was so widely aired that it was eventually parodied on "Saturday Night Live" in 2013.

Bone health isn't the only thing Sally Field advocates for. She's also a staunch supporter of gay rights, thanks in part to her son Sam Greisman, who is openly gay. In 2012, Greisman introduced his mother during an awards ceremony put on by the Human Rights Campaign. Field received the Ally For Equality Award, and Greisman explained that she's always stood by his side no matter what. "When I came out, she didn't even bat an eye. In fact, she was overjoyed."

In her acceptance speech, Field questioned why her support of her son would even be a question. She thanked the Human Rights Campaign for their work on behalf of equality, and on behalf of her son. "You all have fought for him as surely as if you were one of his parents," she said. "You've changed and are changing the lives of little boys and girls who realize somewhere along the way they're just different from their other brothers and sisters. And so the f*** what?"

On an Entertainment Weekly radio show several years later, Field reiterated her love for her son and offered some advice to parents who may be struggling to accept their child's sexuality. "Don't put your own prejudices or fears about sexuality ... on your children," she cautioned. "Sexuality is a human, glorious part of existence."

Sally Field has always been outspoken about the things she believes in. Speaking with Variety in 2022, Field claimed that she was mostly just following the lead of her friend, Jane Fonda. "I mean I'm not Jane at all, even though I go where she tells me to go," Field said.

In 2019, Fonda told Field to go to Washington, D.C. to protest as part of Fonda's Fire Drill Fridays, an event series urging lawmakers to take action to head off the oncoming climate crisis. Field spoke at one such protest that December, telling the crowd at the Capitol Building, "We cannot sit back in our comfort zones and on our couches and wonder, 'What can we do?' We can get out. We can do something, in the rain, whatever it takes" (via The Daily Beast).

For her trouble, Field was arrested. Photographers captured the "Steel Magnolias" star being led away by a U.S. Capitol police officer, raising her zip-tied wrists triumphantly to the crowd. The actor, who once fretted that being on "The Flying Nun" would exclude her from the revolutionary activities of her generation, has still got it.