Sally Field ~ a household name by the time she was 20

November 6, 8:15 PMActing ExaminerDeborah Smith Ford

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  Sally Field                                        (Photo/wiki)

Sally Margaret Field is an actress who turned 63 on November 6th. She became a household name at the age of 20 as Sister Bertrille in the 1960s sitcom The Flying Nun.

Sally Field has won two Academy Awards, one for Norma Rae in 1979, and another for Places in the Heart, with Danny Glover, in 1984.  She also won Golden Globes, Primetime Emmy Awards and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress.

Field got her start on television as the boy-struck surfer girl in the mid-1960s surf culture sitcom series, Gidget.

She went on to star in her best-known television role as Sister Bertrille in The Flying Nun. She later starred opposite John Davidson in a short-lived series called The Girl with Something Extra.

Having played mostly comedic characters on television, Field had a difficult time being cast in dramatic roles. 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.

In 1977 Field co-starred with Burt Reynolds, Jackie Gleason and Jerry Reed in that year's #2 grossing film, Smokey and the Bandit, and soon to follow The End, Hooper and Smokey and the Bandit II.  In 1979, she played a union organizer in Norma Rae, a successful film that established her status as a dramatic actress.

Field's acceptance speech for her second Academy Award in 1985 for Places in the Heart 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!"

Field co-starred with James Garner in the romantic comedy Murphy's Romance. 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 outfit on the cover.

For Field's role as the matriarch, M'Lynn, in the film version of Steel Magnolias, with Julia Roberts (1989), she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress. She had supporting roles in a number of other movies, including Mrs. Doubtfire, with Robin Williams and Pierce Brosnan (1993) (Brosnan lookalike), followed by the role of Forrest's mother in Forrest Gump (1994). By the way, Field is only 10 years older than Tom Hanks.

Field, too, had a recurring role on ER in the 2000–2001 season as Dr. Abby Lockhart's mother Maggie, and later starred in the very short-lived 2002 series The Court.

Sally Field also ventured into the realm of directing.  She directed The Christmas Tree (1996), and Beautiful (2000) as well as an episode of the TV mini-series From the Earth to the Moon (1998).

The voice role of Marina del Ray, is Field's, she is the villain in Disney's The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning, which was released in August 2008.

Field can be seen on television, in 2009, as the spokesperson for Roche Laboratories' osteoporosis treatment medication, Boniva. ~ Talent Field has worked with: Robert Downey, Jr., Whoopi Goldberg