Sally Field - Academy of Achievement

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Academy of Achievement</title>  <meta name="description" content="In her greatest roles, Sally Field has personified the strong-willed, independent woman of the American heartland, earning Oscars for her performances as a courageous union organizer in Norma Rae, and as a Depression-era widow struggling to keep the family farm in Places in the Heart. Although she has earned lasting fame as a serious actress, she first won the hearts of the American public in the 1960s as the teenage star of situation comedies. At the time, many dismissed her as a cute kid whose career would not extend to serious roles, but Sally Field was committed to perfecting her craft, and established herself as a dramatic actress overnight with her Emmy Award-winning portrayal of a woman with multiple-personality disorder in the 1976 television movie Sybil. Highlights of her feature film career include memorable performances in Smokey and the Bandit, Absence of Malice, Steel Magnolias and Forrest Gump. She has enjoyed continued success on television, winning Emmy Awards for her regular roles on ER and Brothers and Sisters. She won further critical acclaim for her 2012 performance as Mary Todd Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln. As she continues to dedicate her time and her talent to film, television and live theater, the breadth and depth of her artistry grow with every role she undertakes."/> <meta name="robots" content="noodp"/> <link rel="canonical" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sally-field/"/> <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US"/> <meta property="og:type" content="article"/> <meta property="og:title" content="Sally Field - Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:description" content="<p class="inputTextFirst">In her greatest roles, Sally Field has personified the strong-willed, independent woman of the American heartland, earning Oscars for her performances as a courageous union organizer in<i> Norma Rae,</i> and as a Depression-era widow struggling to keep the family farm in <i>Places in the Heart</i>.</p> <p class="inputText">Although she has earned lasting fame as a serious actress, she first won the hearts of the American public in the 1960s as the teenage star of situation comedies. At the time, many dismissed her as a cute kid whose career would not extend to serious roles, but Sally Field was committed to perfecting her craft, and established herself as a dramatic actress overnight with her Emmy Award-winning portrayal of a woman with multiple-personality disorder in the 1976 television movie <i>Sybil</i>.</p> <p class="inputText">Highlights of her feature film career include memorable performances in <i>Smokey and the Bandit</i>, <i>Absence of Malice</i>, <i>Steel Magnolias</i> and <i>Forrest Gump</i>. She has enjoyed continued success on television, winning Emmy Awards for her regular roles on <i>ER</i> and <i>Brothers and Sisters</i>. She won further critical acclaim for her 2012 performance as Mary Todd Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's <i>Lincoln</i>. As she continues to dedicate her time and her talent to film, television and live theater, the breadth and depth of her artistry grow with every role she undertakes.</p>"/> <meta property="og:url" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sally-field/"/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/field-Feature-Image.jpg"/> <meta property="og:image:width" content="2800"/> <meta property="og:image:height" content="1120"/> <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"/> <meta name="twitter:description" content="<p class="inputTextFirst">In her greatest roles, Sally Field has personified the strong-willed, independent woman of the American heartland, earning Oscars for her performances as a courageous union organizer in<i> Norma Rae,</i> and as a Depression-era widow struggling to keep the family farm in <i>Places in the Heart</i>.</p> <p class="inputText">Although she has earned lasting fame as a serious actress, she first won the hearts of the American public in the 1960s as the teenage star of situation comedies. At the time, many dismissed her as a cute kid whose career would not extend to serious roles, but Sally Field was committed to perfecting her craft, and established herself as a dramatic actress overnight with her Emmy Award-winning portrayal of a woman with multiple-personality disorder in the 1976 television movie <i>Sybil</i>.</p> <p class="inputText">Highlights of her feature film career include memorable performances in <i>Smokey and the Bandit</i>, <i>Absence of Malice</i>, <i>Steel Magnolias</i> and <i>Forrest Gump</i>. She has enjoyed continued success on television, winning Emmy Awards for her regular roles on <i>ER</i> and <i>Brothers and Sisters</i>. She won further critical acclaim for her 2012 performance as Mary Todd Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's <i>Lincoln</i>. As she continues to dedicate her time and her talent to film, television and live theater, the breadth and depth of her artistry grow with every role she undertakes.</p>"/> <meta name="twitter:title" content="Sally Field - Academy of Achievement"/> <meta name="twitter:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/field-Feature-Image.jpg"/>  <link rel="dns-prefetch" href="//web.archive.org/web/20170626162030/http://s.w.org/"/> <link rel="stylesheet" href="/web/20170626162030cs_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/dist/styles/main-2a51bc91cb.css"> </head> <body class="achiever-template-default single single-achiever postid-2338 sally-field sidebar-primary">  <header class="main-header bg-black"> <div class="search-container clearfix"> <div class="container"> <a class="brand" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/"> <img class="logo" 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</div> </div> </header> <div class="" role="document"> <div class="content"> <main class="main"> <div class="feature-area__container"> <header class="feature-area feature-area--has-image ratio-container ratio-container--feature"> <figure class="feature-box"> <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image feature-area__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/field-Feature-Image-380x152.jpg [(max-width:544px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/field-Feature-Image.jpg [(max-width:992px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/field-Feature-Image-1400x560.jpg"></div> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <figcaption class="feature-area__text ratio-container__text container"> <div class="feature-area__text-inner text-white"> <h2 class="serif-8 feature-area__text-subhead back"><a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever">All achievers</a></h2> <h1 class="serif-1 entry-title feature-area__text-headline">Sally Field</h1> <h5 class="sans-6 feature-area__blurb">Two Oscars for Best Actress</h5> </div> </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </header> </div>  <nav class="in-page-nav row fixedsticky"> <ul class="nav text-xs-center clearfix" role="tablist"> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link active" data-toggle="tab" href="#biography" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Biography">Biography</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#profile" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Profile">Profile</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#interview" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Interview">Interview</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#gallery" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Gallery">Gallery</a> </li> </ul> </nav> <article class="post-2338 achiever type-achiever status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry careers-actor"> <div class="entry-content container clearfix">  <div class="tab-content"> <div class="tab-pane fade in active" id="biography" role="tabpanel"> <section class="achiever--biography"> <div class="banner clearfix"> <div class="banner--single clearfix"> <div class="col-lg-8 col-lg-offset-2"> <div class="banner__image__container"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030/https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-takes/id1025864075?mt=2" target="_blank"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <img class="lazyload banner__image" data-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/WhatItTakes_field-3-13_256-190x190.jpg" alt=""/> </figure> </a> </div> <div class="banner__text__container"> <h3 class="serif-3 banner__headline"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030/https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-takes/id1025864075?mt=2" target="_blank"> Listen to this achiever on <i>What It Takes</i> </a> </h3> <p class="sans-6 banner__text m-b-0"><i>What It Takes</i> is an audio podcast on iTunes produced by the American Academy of Achievement featuring intimate, revealing conversations with influential leaders in the diverse fields of endeavor: music, science and exploration, sports, film, technology, literature, the military and social justice.</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <header class="editorial-article__header col-md-8 col-md-offset-2 text-xs-center"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> <h3 class="serif-3 quote-marks">It changed my life. I knew that the voice of fear was something that I must never listen to. I must go to what desperately frightens me — the chance of failure — not going to what is safe. I tried to learn from that.</h3> </header> </div> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar clearfix"> <h2 class="serif-3 p-b-1">Actress and Activist</h2> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> November 6, 1946 </dd> </div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><p>Sally Field was born in Pasadena, California. Her mother, known by her married name, Margaret Field, was an actress who worked intermittently in theater, film and television. Sally’s father, Richard Dryden Field, was an officer in the United States Army, and later a salesman. Sally’s parents divorced when she was only four; not long after, her mother married stuntman and actor Jock Mahoney.</p> <figure id="attachment_9759" style="width: 2173px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-9759 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-032-Field-Sally-photofest-Sally_Field_family_auto_2.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-9759 size-full lazyload" alt="Sally Field, her stepfather Jock Mahoney, her mother Margaret Field, and her brother Rick Field (ca. 1952)(Credit: HFC/Photofest)" width="2173" height="2286" data-sizes="(max-width: 2173px) 100vw, 2173px" data-srcset="/web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-032-Field-Sally-photofest-Sally_Field_family_auto_2.jpg 2173w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-032-Field-Sally-photofest-Sally_Field_family_auto_2-361x380.jpg 361w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-032-Field-Sally-photofest-Sally_Field_family_auto_2-722x760.jpg 722w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-032-Field-Sally-photofest-Sally_Field_family_auto_2.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1952: Sally Field, her stepfather Jock Mahoney, her mother Margaret Field, and her brother Rick Field. (Photofest)</figcaption></figure><p>Mahoney enjoyed a measure of success in television Westerns, as well as playing Tarzan in a series of films in the early 1960s, but while Sally was growing up, her parents were often unemployed. At that time, actors received no residual payments when their work was repeated on television. By her own account, Sally’s stepfather was emotionally abusive and physically threatening, and she and her brother Richard often found themselves in conflict with him. Sally and her brother defended each other and found the strength to achieve. Richard excelled in school and became a theoretical physicist and university professor. Sally found an outlet for self-expression in acting, starting in junior high school. Losing herself in another character allowed her to escape the fears and uncertainties of her home life.</p> <figure id="attachment_9749" style="width: 1948px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-9749 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-021-Field-Sally-photofest-Gidget_ABC_5.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-9749 size-full lazyload" alt="Sally Field in her role as boy-crazy surfer Gidget in the 1960s television series. (PhotoFest)" width="1948" height="2496" data-sizes="(max-width: 1948px) 100vw, 1948px" data-srcset="/web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-021-Field-Sally-photofest-Gidget_ABC_5.jpg 1948w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-021-Field-Sally-photofest-Gidget_ABC_5-297x380.jpg 297w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-021-Field-Sally-photofest-Gidget_ABC_5-593x760.jpg 593w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-021-Field-Sally-photofest-Gidget_ABC_5.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1965: 19-year-old Sally Field in her role as a boy-crazy surfer girl in the television sitcom <em>Gidget</em>. (PhotoFest)</figcaption></figure><p>After graduation from Birmingham High School in the San Fernando Valley, she enrolled in a summer acting workshop at Columbia Studios. There, a casting agent invited her to audition for a new television series. <em>Gidget</em>, based on a popular book and movie, was set among teenage surfers in Southern California. Field was called back to read for the role numerous times before being chosen over 75 other actresses to play the title role. At 17, she was signed to star in a prime-time network television series.</p> <figure id="attachment_9758" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-9758 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-031-Field-photofest-Sally_Field_1960s_2.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-9758 size-full lazyload" alt="Sally Field (late 1960s)(Credit:Photofest)" width="2280" height="2970" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-031-Field-photofest-Sally_Field_1960s_2.jpg 2280w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-031-Field-photofest-Sally_Field_1960s_2-292x380.jpg 292w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-031-Field-photofest-Sally_Field_1960s_2-583x760.jpg 583w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-031-Field-photofest-Sally_Field_1960s_2.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1960s: Sally Field began her career in TV sitcoms and went on to receive two Academy Awards for Best Actress.</figcaption></figure><p>Gidget immediately established Sally Field as a popular performer with television audiences, but it also created an image of her as a fun-loving, essentially frivolous teenager that made it difficult for casting agents and directors to imagine her in more serious roles. <em>Gidget</em> was abruptly cancelled after its first season, but performed unexpectedly well in summer repeats, and the producers offered Field the lead in a new show, <em>The Flying Nun</em>, a comedy-fantasy with religious overtones. Field balked at taking on such an unreal role but lacking other offers, under pressure from the producers and her stepfather, she accepted the role. She made her feature film debut in 1967 in <em>The Way West</em>, but the role did not establish a lasting presence for her on the big screen. <em>The Flying Nun</em> ran for three seasons and enjoyed healthy ratings, but Field was growing impatient with the situation comedy format. Roles in made-for-TV movies and a recurring part on the Western series <em>Alias Smith and Jones</em> did little to expand her range.</p> <figure id="attachment_9735" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-9735 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-007-field-U1499755.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-9735 size-full lazyload" alt="Sally Field and future husband Steven Craig at a Hollywood premiere in 1965. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)" width="2280" height="2264" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-007-field-U1499755.jpg 2280w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-007-field-U1499755-190x190.jpg 190w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-007-field-U1499755-380x377.jpg 380w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-007-field-U1499755-760x755.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-007-field-U1499755.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1965: Sally Field and future husband Steven Craig at a Hollywood premiere. They were married from 1968 to 1975.</figcaption></figure><p>Sally Field found an artistic outlet studying at the Actors Studio, the legendary workshop founded by “method acting” proponent Lee Strasberg. Many of the most admired young actors of the ’50s and ’60s had studied with Strasberg. A demanding teacher, he enjoyed finding the hidden depths in performers whose public careers had been more limited. Under Strasberg’s tutelage, Field acquired a serious reputation among her peers. She was certain she could undertake more demanding material, but there were few opportunities in Hollywood. In 1973 she found herself starring in a short-lived sitcom with another fantasy premise, <em>The Girl With Something Extra</em>. The show was cancelled and Field’s marriage to her high school sweetheart ended in divorce, leaving her with two young sons to care for.</p> <figure id="attachment_9734" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-9734 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-006-field-E9750.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-9734 size-full lazyload" alt="Sally Field played the airborne Sister Bertrille in three seasons of the popular television show The Flying Nun, from 1967 to 1970. (© Bettmann/Corbis)" width="2280" height="2248" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-006-field-E9750.jpg 2280w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-006-field-E9750-380x375.jpg 380w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-006-field-E9750-760x749.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-006-field-E9750.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1967: Sally Field played the airborne Sister Bertrille in three seasons of the popular television show <em>The Flying Nun</em>.</figcaption></figure><p>Sally Field feared, with reason, that she would be forever typecast as the cute and spunky heroine of absurd fantasies, but she had made an impression on casting director Diane Crittenden, who recommended her for a role in a more realistic film. <em>Stay Hungry</em>, directed by Bob Rafelson, was set in the bodybuilding subculture. The role of Mary Tate, the receptionist in a seedy gym, was far removed from Field’s relentlessly wholesome television image, and Rafelson was reluctant to consider her for the part, but she eventually won him over. Before the film was released, Field won a role that was to have an even more decisive impact on her career. She was cast in the television film <em>Sybil</em>, about a woman with multiple personality disorder. Field’s ability to capture the many facets of this character, and the raw emotional honesty she brought to the role, won her an Emmy Award. The award, followed by the success of <em>Stay Hungry</em>, finally established Field as a serious actress.</p> <figure id="attachment_9754" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-9754 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-027-Field-Sally-HU047179.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-9754 lazyload" alt="Legendary acting teacher Lee Strasberg of the Actors Studio. He mentored scores of young actors, including Sally Field. (© Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS)" width="2280" height="2294" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-027-Field-Sally-HU047179.jpg 2280w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-027-Field-Sally-HU047179-190x190.jpg 190w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-027-Field-Sally-HU047179-378x380.jpg 378w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-027-Field-Sally-HU047179-755x760.jpg 755w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-027-Field-Sally-HU047179.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Legendary acting teacher Lee Strasberg of the Actors Studio. He mentored young actors, including Sally Field.</figcaption></figure><p>The following year brought exposure of a different kind, as she played the romantic lead in the action comedy <em>Smokey and the Bandit</em>, starring Burt Reynolds. The film was one of the year’s biggest successes, and Field soon appeared in a string of pictures opposite Reynolds, including <em>The End</em>, <em>Hooper</em> and a <em>Smokey and the Bandit </em>sequel.</p> <figure id="attachment_9736" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-9736 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-008-field-U1998253.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-9736 size-full lazyload" alt="1978: Sally Field won the Oscar for Best Actress in recognition of her performance as a textile worker turned union organizer in <em>Norma Rae</em>. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)" width="2280" height="1528" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-008-field-U1998253.jpg 2280w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-008-field-U1998253-380x255.jpg 380w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-008-field-U1998253-760x509.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-008-field-U1998253.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1978: Sally Field won the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance as a textile worker in <em>Norma Rae</em>. (Bettman)</figcaption></figure><p>Field received the most important role of her career up to that time in 1978, when she was cast as a Southern textile mill worker turned union organizer in the drama <em>Norma Rae</em>. Shooting the film on location in the mill town where the story was set had a powerful impact on Field. She credits the film’s director, Martin Ritt, with challenging her as an actress, as well as awakening her social conscience. <em>Norma Rae</em> was a critical and popular success, with Field’s performance winning widespread acclaim, capped with the year’s Oscar for Best Actress.</p> <figure id="attachment_9751" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-9751 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-024-Field-photofest-Places_In_Heart_1984_108.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-9751 size-full lazyload" alt="Danny Glover and Sally Field as Moze and Edna in the 1994 film Places in the Heart. (PhotoFest)" width="2280" height="1483" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-024-Field-photofest-Places_In_Heart_1984_108.jpg 2280w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-024-Field-photofest-Places_In_Heart_1984_108-380x247.jpg 380w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-024-Field-photofest-Places_In_Heart_1984_108-760x494.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-024-Field-photofest-Places_In_Heart_1984_108.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Danny Glover and Sally Field as Moze and Edna in the 1994 motion picture <em>Places in the Heart</em>. (PhotoFest)</figcaption></figure><p>With her sitcom image far behind her, Sally Field became one of the most sought-after actresses in Hollywood, playing opposite the film world’s leading men. In <em>Absence of Malice</em>, Field memorably played an unscrupulous reporter hounding a businessman, played by Paul Newman. Another career highlight was her performance in 1984’s <em>Places in the Heart</em>. Written and directed by Robert Benton, the film was set in Texas during the Great Depression. Field played a widow, struggling to keep the family farm with the help of one black farmhand and a blind man. The role solidified the image, introduced in <em>Norma Rae</em>, of Field as an iron-willed Southern girl, triumphing over adversity. <em>Places in the Heart</em> won Field a second Oscar for Best Actress. Her ebullient victory speech, much parodied by comedians in the years that followed, was a sincere expression of gratitude for the acceptance she had finally won from the motion picture community.</p> <p>Apart from her more dramatic parts, Field enjoyed continued success in romantic comedies, co-starring with James Garner in <em>Murphy’s Romance</em>. In 1988’s <em>Punchline</em>, she played a single mother turned stand-up comedian, appearing opposite Tom Hanks, then at the beginning of his career. The following year she was cast as the mother of Julia Roberts in <em>Steel Magnolias</em>, and essayed one of her most intense roles in <em>Not Without My Daughter</em>, in which she played an American woman, married to an Iranian man, who must flee Iran with her daughter after the Islamic revolution. Field enjoyed another large success with her role as Robin Williams’s ex-wife in the popular comedy <em>Mrs. Doubtfire</em>.</p> <figure id="attachment_9730" style="width: 974px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-9730 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-002-field-0000298124-004.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-9730 size-full lazyload" alt="1994: Sally Field as Mrs. Gump in the Oscar-winning classic <em>Forrest Gump</em>. (© Bureau L.A. Collection/Corbis)" width="974" height="1536" data-sizes="(max-width: 974px) 100vw, 974px" data-srcset="/web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-002-field-0000298124-004.jpg 974w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-002-field-0000298124-004-241x380.jpg 241w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-002-field-0000298124-004-482x760.jpg 482w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-002-field-0000298124-004.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1994: Sally Field as Mrs. Gump in the Oscar-winning classic film <em>Forrest Gump</em>. (© Bureau L.A. Collection/Corbis)</figcaption></figure><p>In 1994, Field reunited with Tom Hanks in the blockbuster success <em>Forrest Gump</em>, directed by Robert Zemeckis. Only ten years older than Hanks, Field played his mother throughout the film, as a young woman in the early scenes and as an older woman at the picture’s end, a performance that once again showed her great range and versatility.</p> <p>After a nearly 20-year absence from the small screen, Sally Field returned to television with the well-received mini-series <em>A Woman of Independent Means</em>, based on the bestselling novel by Elizabeth Forsythe. Having established herself as a leading actress in motion pictures, Field made her directing debut with the feature film <em>The Christmas Tree</em>. She later directed an episode of the television mini-series <em>From the Earth to the Moon</em>, in which she also appeared as an actress.</p> <figure id="attachment_9738" style="width: 1679px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-9738 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-010-field-UT0089226.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-9738 size-full lazyload" alt="Sally Field receives a second Emmy Award in 2001 for her performance in the series ER. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)" width="1679" height="2048" data-sizes="(max-width: 1679px) 100vw, 1679px" data-srcset="/web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-010-field-UT0089226.jpg 1679w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-010-field-UT0089226-312x380.jpg 312w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-010-field-UT0089226-623x760.jpg 623w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-010-field-UT0089226.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Sally Field receives a second Emmy Award in 2001 for her performance in the series <em>ER</em>. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)</figcaption></figure><p>The 2000 television season brought Field another role that tested her ability to embody characters in extreme situations. On the long-running television drama<em> ER</em>, she played a woman who suffers from bipolar disorder, and is the mother of one of the show’s doctor characters. As in <em>Sybil</em>, Field found the means of experiencing and expressing a psychiatric disorder in a way that made it comprehensible to millions of viewers who might have had no previous understanding of mental illness. She was honored with a second Emmy Award for this performance, and the character returned in subsequent seasons of the program.</p> <p>Although Field had appeared onstage occasionally over the course of her career, in maturity she undertook more serious forays into live theater. In 2004, she made her Broadway debut in <em>The Goat</em> by Edward Albee. The following year, she enjoyed an acclaimed run as Amanda Wingfield, the domineering mother in the Tennessee Williams classic <em>The Glass Menagerie</em>.</p> <figure id="attachment_9742" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-9742 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-014-2008konasummit0745_1.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-9742 size-full lazyload" alt=" Sally Field describes the struggles of her early career at the 2008 International Achievement Summit in Hawaii. (© Academy of Achievement)" width="2280" height="1433" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-014-2008konasummit0745_1.jpg 2280w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-014-2008konasummit0745_1-380x239.jpg 380w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-014-2008konasummit0745_1-760x478.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-014-2008konasummit0745_1.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Sally Field describes the struggles of her early career at the 2008 International Achievement Summit in Hawaii.</figcaption></figure><p>In 2005, Field was diagnosed with osteoporosis, the loss of bone density experienced by many women as they grow older. She resolved to learn as much as possible about the condition, and signed on as a spokesperson for the prescription medication Boniva. She regards her work for Boniva as just one part of a multifaceted effort to raise awareness of the condition and promote its early treatment. She has been particularly critical of the American health care system and its neglect of ailments such as osteoporosis in their early stages.</p> <figure id="attachment_9744" style="width: 1984px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-9744 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-016-2008konasummit1419_1.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-9744 lazyload" alt="Sally Field presents the Golden Plate Award to Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys at the 2008 International Achievement Summit in Hawaii. (© Academy of Achievement)" width="1984" height="2816" data-sizes="(max-width: 1984px) 100vw, 1984px" data-srcset="/web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-016-2008konasummit1419_1.jpg 1984w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-016-2008konasummit1419_1-268x380.jpg 268w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-016-2008konasummit1419_1-535x760.jpg 535w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-016-2008konasummit1419_1.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Awards Council member and Oscar-winning actress Sally Field presents the Golden Plate Award to Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys at the 2008 International Achievement Summit in Kona-Kailua, Hawaii. (Academy of Achievement)</figcaption></figure><p>Field has not shrunk from expressing herself on other matters. Her performance as the mother of a large troubled family in the series <em>Brothers and Sisters</em> brought her a third Emmy Award in 2007. In the series, the character of her youngest son is a military veteran, traumatized by the war in Iraq. In her Emmy acceptance speech, she noted that “if mothers ruled the world we wouldn’t have any more goddamned wars.” Fox Television, the network broadcasting the ceremony, cut her off in mid-speech, but her words were widely quoted and the uncensored speech circulated on the Internet. Some old fans may have been disturbed by her blunt speech, but Sally Field refused to retract a word. In life, as in her gallery of unforgettable performances, Sally Field insists on absolute honesty. Sally Field capped a memorable series of roles in 2012 with a heartbreaking performance as Mary Todd Lincoln, the troubled wife of the 16th president, in Steven Spielberg’s <em>Lincoln</em>.</p> </body></html> <div class="clearfix"> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="profile" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <header class="editorial-article__header"> <figure class="text-xs-center"> <img class="inductee-badge" src="/web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/inducted-badge@2x.png" alt="Inducted Badge" width="120" height="120"/> <figcaption class="serif-3 text-brand-primary"> Inducted in 2005 </figcaption> </figure> </header> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <dl class="clearfix m-b-0"> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Career</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> <div><a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.actor">Actor</a></div> </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> November 6, 1946 </dd> </div> </dl> </aside> <article class="col-md-8 editorial-article clearfix"> <p class="inputTextFirst">In her greatest roles, Sally Field has personified the strong-willed, independent woman of the American heartland, earning Oscars for her performances as a courageous union organizer in<i> Norma Rae,</i> and as a Depression-era widow struggling to keep the family farm in <i>Places in the Heart</i>.</p> <p class="inputText">Although she has earned lasting fame as a serious actress, she first won the hearts of the American public in the 1960s as the teenage star of situation comedies. At the time, many dismissed her as a cute kid whose career would not extend to serious roles, but Sally Field was committed to perfecting her craft, and established herself as a dramatic actress overnight with her Emmy Award-winning portrayal of a woman with multiple-personality disorder in the 1976 television movie <i>Sybil</i>.</p> <p class="inputText">Highlights of her feature film career include memorable performances in <i>Smokey and the Bandit</i>, <i>Absence of Malice</i>, <i>Steel Magnolias</i> and <i>Forrest Gump</i>. She has enjoyed continued success on television, winning Emmy Awards for her regular roles on <i>ER</i> and <i>Brothers and Sisters</i>. She won further critical acclaim for her 2012 performance as Mary Todd Lincoln in Steven Spielberg’s <i>Lincoln</i>. As she continues to dedicate her time and her talent to film, television and live theater, the breadth and depth of her artistry grow with every role she undertakes.</p> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="interview" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <div class="col-md-12 interview-feature-video"> <figure> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/6N2PQr5QBjg?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=4093&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Field-Sally-2008-HDCAM-1of2-Orig.00_11_25_07.Still010-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Field-Sally-2008-HDCAM-1of2-Orig.00_11_25_07.Still010-760x428.jpg"></div> <div class="video-tag sans-4"> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> <div class="video-tag__text">Watch full interview</div> </div> </div> </figure> </div> <header class="col-md-12 text-xs-center m-b-2"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> </header> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <h2 class="serif-3 achiever--biography-subtitle">Actress and Activist</h2> <div class="sans-2">Kailua-Kona, Hawaii</div> <div class="sans-2">July 4, 2008</div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8">   <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_9748" style="width: 2158px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-9748 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-020-Field-Sally-photofest-Sally_Field_family_auto_1.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-9748 size-full lazyload" alt="Sally Field and her brother Richard, with their stepfather, stuntman and actor Jock Mahoney, costumed for a role on one of his television westerns in the 1950s. (PhotoFest) " width="2158" height="2320" data-sizes="(max-width: 2158px) 100vw, 2158px" data-srcset="/web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-020-Field-Sally-photofest-Sally_Field_family_auto_1.jpg 2158w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-020-Field-Sally-photofest-Sally_Field_family_auto_1-353x380.jpg 353w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-020-Field-Sally-photofest-Sally_Field_family_auto_1-707x760.jpg 707w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-020-Field-Sally-photofest-Sally_Field_family_auto_1.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1950s: Sally Field and brother, Richard, with stepfather, stuntman and actor Jock Mahoney, costumed for a role.</figcaption></figure><p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Long before your Oscar-winning roles in <i>Norma Rae</i> and <i>Places in the Heart</i>, you were a teenage star in sitcoms like <i>Gidget</i> and <i>The Flying Nun</i>. We understand that your mom was also an actress. You kind of grew up in show business. What was that like?</b></span></p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/KDpCojCCjdM?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=44&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Field-Sally-2008-HDCAM-1of2-Orig.00_15_43_07.Still015-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Field-Sally-2008-HDCAM-1of2-Orig.00_15_43_07.Still015-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Sally Field: I come from a real working-class acting family. It’s not a glamorous life. My stepfather, who I grew up with, was a stuntman-slash-actor, but basically a stuntman. My mother, interesting, she was a working-class actor that would one week go to work on <i>Bonanza</i>, and then not work for a few weeks, and then get a job on <i>Perry Mason</i>, and then not work for a while, and then get another job on another television series. So it was really the typical, dangerous working-class actress life, in that you never knew if you were going to have an income.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Most actors live that way, don’t they?</b></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s2">Sally Field: They do. It’s very difficult.</span></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/NHz5fipTE6o?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=0&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Field-Sally-2008-HDCAM-1of2-Orig.01_02_28_26.Still020-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Field-Sally-2008-HDCAM-1of2-Orig.01_02_28_26.Still020-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="p1">Life is so incredibly insecure.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>And when I grew up, part of the really important ingredients to my becoming in the industry is that twice we had all our things in our house repossessed, and it was extremely influential to me to live in a house one day and then not the next, and have to move to a littler sort of tract house thing, understanding that kind of real insecure existence.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_9745" style="width: 372px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-9745 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-017-Field-Sally-photofest-3-mvsrch_front.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-9745 size-full lazyload" alt="Actress Margaret Field, mother of Sally Field. (PhotoFest) " width="372" height="456" data-sizes="(max-width: 372px) 100vw, 372px" data-srcset="/web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-017-Field-Sally-photofest-3-mvsrch_front.jpg 372w, /web/20170626162030im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-017-Field-Sally-photofest-3-mvsrch_front-310x380.jpg 310w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-017-Field-Sally-photofest-3-mvsrch_front.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Actress Margaret Field, mother of Sally Field, divorced Jack Mahoney in 1968 when Sally turned 22. (PhotoFest)</figcaption></figure><p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Did your mother try to dissuade you from acting?</b></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s2">Sally Field: No. My mother certainly didn’t.</span></p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/xj7PxVCttAw?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=90&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Field-Sally-2008-HDCAM-1of2-Orig.00_14_15_20.Still012-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Field-Sally-2008-HDCAM-1of2-Orig.00_14_15_20.Still012-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/passion/">Passion</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>My mother was under contract to Paramount. She was in the days when they had contract players. She was spotted in the Pasadena Playhouse because she was incredibly beautiful. And then she studied with Charles Laughton. She always had a great, deep love of the “craft” of acting because she sat in a small classroom with Charles Laughton and watched him perform all the time. He was a phenomenal actor. So I grew up with her loving the classics, reading Chekhov and Shakespeare and loving the real art of what acting is — and acting is story-telling. So we had this kind of secret language between the two of us — from the time I was little — of acting. And when I finally found an acting class — and <u>thank God</u> they had them. I underline that. They don’t have them now. But I went to public school in the San Fernando Valley in California and they had acting classes. And in junior high even, I found the stage for the first time, and she and I would work on things together. I would work on scenes, with my little <i>Romeo and Juliet</i> soliloquies and the improvisations I was supposed to bring in. So it was a real communication that she and I had together, and she always supported that love that I had of it.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>You said you were on stage in junior high. What was your first performance on stage?</b></span></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/dmLtEXfFO6c?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=96&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Field-Sally-2008-HDCAM-1of2-Orig.00_15_33_09.Still014-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Field-Sally-2008-HDCAM-1of2-Orig.00_15_33_09.Still014-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/passion/">Passion</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Sally Field: My first performance on stage was some scenes from <i>Romeo and Juliet</i> when I was 13. And I was truly… I must have been dreadful. I had no idea what I was doing, but it was so seminal, so incredibly important because — I wanted to speak about it today but I left it out. I had this magical thing happen to me. I had no idea where I was going and I didn’t know how it arrived, but I had this glorious out-of-body experience. I was on stage, saying words that I really didn’t quite understand. I had no idea of what a technique was or anything, and I simply floated away. I didn’t exist. There was no Sally — little 13-year-old Sally — on stage. There were hands and feet and a mouth, working and saying things, but they weren’t mine. And it is this blissful glorious high that I had early on in my life, and it is what has taught me and guided me forever, because when I lost sight of what on God’s green earth was I doing here, why was I doing this, why was I beating myself up, I remembered that moment. And my whole life has been trying to understand how to get back there, trying to own that gift, that ability that human beings have to float away to some creative place that is simply God-like.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Actors get to be more than one person.</b></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s2">Sally Field: Well, yes and no. It is a very interesting profession, or craft, or art, or whatever you call it.</span></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/ARBokjYTPvE?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Field-Sally-2008-HDCAM-1of2-Orig.00_01_37_20.Still001-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Field-Sally-2008-HDCAM-1of2-Orig.00_01_37_20.Still001-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>When you learn to do it, if you study and you have a lot of techniques, you learn to step in someone else’s shoes. Part of those shoes are created by history. You do research on who this person, if they existed or not, might have been. You use the text of the writer who has written it. You use the text itself, and all of the information that the writer has given you. But you really instill it with your own life. You find parts of yourself that actually link with that human being, even though there may be so… on the page… you could… I mean, how am I going to do this? There’s no way I can relate to this person. And it transforms you as a person to stand in those shoes, because you realize how you are linked to everyone, profoundly, deeply, emotionally linked. And I have been changed by the strong roles I’ve gotten to play, of Norma Rae or Sybil and others, and I go away not the same. And it has made me wonder, “Was John Wayne John Wayne before he played those roles?” Or did <i>Red River </i>change John Wayne and help him to develop to be the person that he became as a human being? I think it has to go hand-in-hand.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>That’s an incredible description of the art of acting. You said you also found drama in high school. What kinds of things did you do in high school?</b></span></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/H1B7K2c0yMo?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=72&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Field-Sally-2008-HDCAM-1of2-Orig.00_15_43_07.Still015-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Field-Sally-2008-HDCAM-1of2-Orig.00_15_43_07.Still015-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/passion/">Passion</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Sally Field: I kind of lived in the drama department, very much lived in the drama department. And I was so lucky, again, that I had the drama department, but that I had these wonderful teachers. Mr. Culp was one of them, a remarkable fellow who was dedicated to the arts and theater arts, and taught us all about theater in high school. We performed scenes, and we also performed a term play. But I got so hungry and aggressive with it that sometimes he would call me to his office and tell me I had to be nicer to the other students because I just was hungry to do the roles. I just was hungry to work. And I would pick for my scenes the people who I thought, “Hmm, who will take this most seriously?” It was a terribly important time to me, because I went right from that “Who knew?”– right from that into the big bad world. I really clung to this image of myself that I had created in high school of being strong enough to pull it off, when really I was just a little kid.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Did you like to read?</b></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s2">Sally Field: No.</span></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/OvPDqcCmTCo?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=72&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Field-Sally-2008-HDCAM-1of2-Orig.00_11_07_18.Still005-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Field-Sally-2008-HDCAM-1of2-Orig.00_11_07_18.Still005-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="p1">I was a bad reader.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I was uneducated basically. Completely and utterly and totally uneducated.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I barely went to classes.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I only went to the drama classes.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I wasn’t really encouraged in my home — as a female growing up in the 50s — to be educated.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It was a real lack.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>My mother did a lot of great things but she wasn’t educated so she didn’t know how to support that.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>And my brother, who became an elemental particle physicist — one of the finest physicists in the world — and I never went to college.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>And it really is, in a lot of ways, indicative of what our society was then. I survived and I taught myself, but deeply, as a 61-year-old woman — and my sons would be here in the room going, “Here she goes” — I have been possessed with this longing to have an education, a formal, “Sit in the classroom, write-the-paper, turn it in, get a B, wish for an A” kind of education.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Did you get cast in <i>Gidget</i> during high school?</b></span></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/Du28KCpkjG0?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=0&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Field-Sally-2008-HDCAM-1of2-Orig.00_11_11_18.Still007-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Field-Sally-2008-HDCAM-1of2-Orig.00_11_11_18.Still007-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Sally Field: I had just graduated. It was that summer of 1964. I had just graduated from high school and had no idea what I was going to do. And no, my parents didn’t say, “Sal, maybe you ought to be taking SATs and going to college”? It was like what… I sometimes think if I hadn’t said, “Hmm,” that I would’ve just drifted off and they wouldn’t have basically noticed. “What happened to that girl that used to live here?” I had never been out of the state. I had never been on an airplane. I was so incredibly naïve and unsophisticated. I didn’t know that what I really wanted was to go to New York and study acting, didn’t know that it really existed. I knew New York was there, but I didn’t know about the Actor’s Studio. Even though my mother loved acting — that’s a whole ‘nother story. She sort of so focused on being married to who she was married to. She lost a lot of her own voice, I think, is the truth.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><b>That happens sometimes with stepfathers.</b></p> <p>Sally Field: A lot. So I didn’t know where it was. I didn’t own the information of the kind of actor I wanted to be.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/H4HmCq9g4SE?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=0&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Field-Sally-2008-HDCAM-1of2-Orig.00_16_51_17.Still017-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Field-Sally-2008-HDCAM-1of2-Orig.00_16_51_17.Still017-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I said I needed to go and act somewhere in the summertime, because that was what I did all day long. My stepfather had heard of some workshop that was located at Columbia Pictures, and it was just using the facilities at night. And so I went and auditioned. You had to audition. I auditioned with my mother, with a scene from <i>Toys in the Attic</i>, which must’ve been beyond dreadful. But I got into the workshop, and then I realized that the people who auditioned you were actually casting people from television. And the first night I went to the workshop, the casting man from Screen Gems came out, introduced himself, and asked me if I’d come on an interview the next day. And that interview that I went on — completely naïve. All the other girls had eight by ten glossies and agents. I had a wallet full of pictures of my friends.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><b>Did he see you act?</b></p> <p>Sally Field: He’d seen me in an audition with my mother, right out of high school. He asked me to come on the audition.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170626162030if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/k92h174Czhc?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=28&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Field-Sally-2008-HDCAM-1of2-Orig.00_04_43_26.Still002-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Field-Sally-2008-HDCAM-1of2-Orig.00_04_43_26.Still002-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I went on the audition — auditioned. I’d never been… I mean I didn’t know what to do. I came back, I came back, I came back, I came back, I came back, I came back, which seemed like forever. And at the end of the summer, I was doing a television series called <i>Gidget</i>. Yeah, and I was 17. So bam! You know, just into it, just flop into the world!</p> </div> </div>     <aside class="collapse" id="full-interview">    <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>You’ve spoken in previous interviews about conflicted feelings you had about your stepfather. He was kind of a fearsome person. Can you address that?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: He was a terrorizing person. He was a very charismatic person. In my now 60-some odd years, I think he’s been the biggest source of conflict, as a person, in my life, in trying to sort out what my feelings really were. He destroyed a lot of good things about his children — his stepchildren and his own children. Oddly enough, I think I owe a great deal to how difficult he was.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>What made him difficult?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: Boy, it’s almost impossible to say right here. He was very aggressive. He could be incredibly tyrannical. But I think, as a child, the biggest, most damaging part of him is that he loved to humiliate. He loved to pick you apart and deeply humiliate you. I don’t really know why. I think he thought he was parenting. I’m not really sure. I was the one that stood up. I was the one that wouldn’t take it. I was the one that fought for my brother, for whatever reason. Then, for other reasons that will go in the book, I became a focus of his tyranny. I was terrified. I was terrified all the time. I was terrified asleep, I was terrified awake, I was just terrified that I would be forced to fight, and yet I did. Something in me wouldn’t be quieted. He was a very big man, almost six-five, and very handsome and charismatic in his way.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Wasn’t he a prominent stuntman?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: He was probably one of the finest stuntmen that ever lived, athletically gifted beyond belief, and a gorgeous male. He would say to me, as this little 15-year-old girl, pointing at me in this big threatening fashion, that he had this magic to identify everyone’s Achilles heel, and I was like, “Wow! What is that?” And that is to identify where it is you had this deep flaw. And if he were able to tell you what that deep personal flaw was, it would destroy you, because you wouldn’t be able to handle that truth. And I remember sitting there hearing that at 15, going, “Bullshit.” Part of me when — first of all, I’m not going to believe that. Second of all, could it possibly be true? Could there be something about me that I don’t see that’s so horrifying that I don’t want to know, that if he told me, it would destroy me? And I think what it did is it made me so that every flaw that I had — every weakness I had, every part of me that I didn’t want to see — it was going to be what I rode in with first. No one was going to be able to say anything to me that I didn’t already know and accept about myself. So, I think a lot of the things that were damaging to maybe my brother, ultimately turned out for me to be the fight, the part of me that just simply wouldn’t sit still. Even to this day, I have to watch myself. If someone says something that triggers me I’ll come flaring up in this way that I don’t want to be that person. That’s not what I want to be. But it triggers this old language that I had of survival and I have used it in my acting. It is my anger, my fury, my deep resentment at being manipulated like that. I have learned to own it, to use it to propel me. And I think some of my siblings, it really was damaging.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Do you know where that strength came from?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: I don’t really know, except that I was the second child and I adored my brother. My older brother I worshipped. He was the sun and the moon and the stars. If he played with me that day, I was like, “Oh my God, I had such a good day!” And I think that early on in our lives, if something happened to him, I didn’t care what happened to me. I would just kill them. And I think a lot of my ability to jump on the table and fight with my stepfather came from the fact that he was hurting my brother. I think it was probably a very female thing, and in a lot of ways, maybe it comes from the fact that I was female.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>When were you able to leave home?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: I left home as soon as I could. I started to earn a living when I was 17, and I think I left home just as I turned 18.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>So could you have anticipated when you took the role of <i>Gidget</i> what a cultural phenomenon it would be?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: I didn’t have the maturity to be able to think like that, I was so new. Boy, I was pushing my envelope! You’ve heard from a lot of people who started companies very young. In some ways that was me. </span><span class="s1">I was too young to know that I should be desperately, deeply, profoundly frightened. I was just too young to know that what I was doing couldn’t…it was going to destroy me. And I just kind of blithely went along, because it’s what I had done in high school to survive, and I was really good at that. I was really good in high school, so surely I was really good here, and didn’t know to be as terrified as I probably should’ve been. I knew that Gidget was a character I loved. I had watched the movies with Sandra Dee, and oh my gosh, it was so great. Gee whiz, I wanted to be that. She was so cute and gosh…so I was simply lost in that. I was simply lost in the amazing fun. I got to do that, and couldn’t really incorporate in my head the magnitude, in that it was going to reach millions and millions of people. But something in me had some kind of strength, that I don’t know how or why. I don’t know why, except that I had this gift early on. I had a gift and it held me, this little sparkling gift that I had when I left my body. It held me safe. It said, “I’ll be with you, you’ll be fine, you’ll come home to us and you’ll be fine.” And it’s always been there.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>What was it like, playing Gidget? She was really an icon for young girls.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: I didn’t ever think of that. I’m sure she was an icon to me. </span><span class="s1">I think the most important thing in <i>Gidget</i> is that she had a father. I think it was this really turning point for me because I got to play a girl who had a father, and I didn’t have one. It was Don Porter, who was the most lovely, lovely, lovely loving man. And he was so terribly supportive to me in my awkwardness, in my newness. I didn’t read very well, because I realize now, I am like slightly dyslexic in a way, especially when I get nervous. We would do readings once a week for a while — when we had time — of the script. We’d sit down and do a reading, and I didn’t know a lot of the words, and I was so unsophisticated. I remember to this day some of the words I stumbled on, like “mundane” — I didn’t know what that word was. And “symbiotic,” I didn’t know what it was. Everybody got such a big kick out of me, ’cause I was 17, sort of out there. And when they laughed, it deeply affected me, because I was so used to humiliation. It was what I lived with, the threat that humiliation would come toward me in the form of my stepfather. So when we’d sit at the table and they’d laugh, it would be my trigger. I’d be like, “Oh, my God!” And he somehow — he couldn’t have known — but he would sit next to me, and he would whisper the word to me before a word would come up. It could be something simple. It could be like, he would whisper it to me. It was truly one of the most loving things from a man that had happened to me to that point.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>He was a likable father on the show as well.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: When you do things like a television series, which is so relentless, a lot of what you see is the reality of what’s happening. I learned that a lot of that can’t be acted. A lot of that chemistry is because it is real.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b><i>The Flying Nun</i> was your next role. Can you talk about playing <i>The Flying Nun</i>?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: Well that’s an interesting journey. I didn’t want to do it. </span><span class="s1"><i>Gidget</i> stopped sort of prematurely oddly, and I didn’t have enough connection with my own voice to know that I needed to go and study and become what I wanted to become. </span><span class="s1">I didn’t know how to do that yet. I was 19, and I kept turning it down. </span><span class="s1">I didn’t want to be a nun. I, I was a burgeoning young woman. It was the ’60s. Everyone was running around naked! I didn’t want to do that, but I didn’t want to be a nun at all! </span><span class="s1">I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to be this silly thing.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">I turned it down. It took great strength. I was already living on my own, in an apartment by myself down the road and not that far away, and I said, “No, no, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to do that.” You know, now, very brave of me. I’m going to find something else I want to do. And my stepfather came over to my apartment one time and told me — and I subsequently realized it was because the producer, Harry Ackerman, had called him to do it, so I felt betrayed ultimately. He’d said that I should do it because I may never work again. I mean those were like…I didn’t know it then. I should’ve burst out laughing because that’s like the cliché in the town. You know, like, “Shall we lunch?” you know. It’s like a cliché, “You’ll never work again.” But, I was too young to know that I should’ve laughed. Instead I got scared. And I thought, “God, really?” and called them up and said, “I guess I should do this.” They were already filming the pilot with somebody else and they fired her, and they put me in the next day and there it was. And I was really unhappy for all three years that I did it because a part of me knew why. I had listened to a voice of fear. It changed my life. It changed my life. I knew then that that voice of fear was something that I must never listen to — fear of that. I must go to what desperately frightens me. [What] desperately frightens me is the chance of failure, is the chance of not knowing. But not going to what is safe, and that’s what my stepfather had urged me to do. And I tried to learn that.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>As an actress, was <i>The Flying Nun</i> a setback in a way? You were inclined to being typecast?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: Well, you know, ultimately you look at these things. You look at these paths and these journeys you go on, and I think it’s up to you to find the value in them, ’cause there is value in all of them, even those that you would call, “Godsh, I shouldn’t have done that. I should’ve done <i>that</i>, I need to do <i>that</i>.” I did that, and I was there for three years. And it was an invaluable education. It was not a very glamorous one. It was a successful one, in that the show was successful for three years. It would’ve gone on, had I not begun to drag my feet so terribly and, you know, every night wish it ill. But what it did for me — besides learning a kind of facility with the craft of stepping in front of a camera, of learning dialogue, a facility that I didn’t have yet — is that I met Madeleine Sherwood, who was the actress who played Mother Superior. And I was so desperately unhappy. She said, “Come with me.” And at the end of the first year of <i>The Flying Nun</i>, she took me to the Actor’s Studio to meet Lee Strasberg, and that was a monumental change in my life. From then on, I would work in the daytime, in between <i>The Flying Nun</i>, and at night I would be at the Actor’s Studio in L.A., because Lee Strasberg would be, six months out of the year in L.A. I would be doing just outrageous material that I still didn’t quite understand. I was doing Sartre’s <i>Respectful Prostitute</i>, or whatever I could do that I thought was completely outside of what <i>The Flying Nun</i> was. But ultimately, I worked with Lee on and off for about ten years. And ultimately I learned a craft. I learned to hear my voice of what I really wanted to do. And finally, when I was given the opportunity to do the work, I really knew how to do it.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>In those days there seemed to be a real schism between TV actors and film actors. These days it’s almost reversed, because there’s such great television and so many great actors, including yourself, on television. But back then, it was a stigma almost.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: It was a stigma. I mean television was thought of as, you know, the poor relation to film. And there is still a little of that. There’s still a little of that. It’s a little snobbery, a class system that existed. But in 1960, you know, late ’60s, early ’70s it was impossible, especially if you came for something called <i>The Flying Nun</i>. It was impossible to make that transition. It just couldn’t be done. It wasn’t that I couldn’t get the part, I couldn’t get in the door. I couldn’t get on the list. Most especially because I was the Flying Nun. It was an important journey to change that. It made me learn some really valuable lessons, and that is that if I wasn’t where I wanted to be, it was because I wasn’t good enough, period. Period. It wasn’t because they weren’t letting me in the door. It wasn’t because they were against me, or they thought I was something else, or, “They, they, they.” It was simply because I wasn’t good enough. That the minute I gave my power away to them I was lost. And I didn’t try to get in the door. I didn’t try.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">You know, I barely had an agent who cared whether I lived or died. And what was bizarre is that that’s how it happened. That I’d worked so hard at the Actor’s Studio, that I started to get this kind of little underground reputation. It was also during this incredible time in American film in the ’70s when American film was changing. And at the Actor’s Studio was Ellen Burstyn and Jack Nicholson and things were changing. And I got in on an audition, not because of my agent, but because of someone who had worked with me at the Actor’s Studio and told someone that people thought they knew who I was, but I wasn’t that. And I came in on the audition. By then I knew how to audition. I knew that I couldn’t come in as Sally Field, this still rather unsophisticated person. I had to come in as the character. It was for a film called <i>Stay Hungry</i>. Bob Rafelson, a wonderful director certainly, at a really important time in American film. I had to come and convince him that I was this absolute floozy, this tart, this sleep-around kind of girl — uneducated, Southern, sleep-around little floozy girl. And I was uneducated, but I wasn’t any of the other things, but I knew how to be that character. I knew how to play the role. I also knew that an audition starts from the moment I started to get dressed and leave the house, and that the acting had to be…that he had to then believe that everything else I’d done to that point, <i>Gidget</i> and <i>The Flying Nun</i>, was an incredible acting job. I mean really I was just this absolute tart. </span><span class="s1">And that’s what I did. He did everything he could do to not hire me.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>We’ve read that you overheard him saying, “Why did you bring Sally Field?”</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: Exactly. I heard him yelling at the casting person. She’d brought me in because of someone who’d worked with me. She was Diane Crittenden, who was a wonderful casting person who would do these outrageous things because she heard something. I heard him yelling at her saying, “Why would you waste my time? This is Sally Field! What are you thinking?” Of course, by then I had had Lee Strasberg in my life, who was one of my important mentors, a really important and phenomenal teacher who taught me how to use that in a way that wasn’t going to get in my way. Actually, it was fuel. It was like, “Open the door and watch out!” I knew how to do it, and I did it.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>So he did hire you after all.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: He did. It wasn’t easy. I had to test and test and test and test and test. And he called everyone he knew saying, “Could this be possible?” And he would say just outrageous things to me. He would call me and say, “You can’t possibly be the best one. It must be because you’ve auditioned more than anyone else.” I said, “This is the second audition I’ve ever been on in my life.” First one was for <i>Gidget</i>. So bless his heart, Bob Rafelson, he had the guts to do it. They were really gritty, raw films — to come through <i>The Flying Nun</i> and that — and that was my first real role.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>This was a time of activism for people in the film industry, and for people in the country as a whole. Did you have any role at all in the activism of the 60s?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: I didn’t really understand it. I tried a little bit. I came from a Republican family that was kind of involved, but not really. I wasn’t ever encouraged to think about my country or my fellow man. I had a journey to go before I could get there. I had some people to meet to change that. One of them came up later that was the, probably the most important, other than Lee. Lee Strasberg was incredibly important, but Marty Ritt, who directed <i>Norma Rae</i>, changed who I was. Not only my career, but changed me.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Before we get to <i>Norma Rae</i>, can you tell us what you learned from Lee Strasberg? We know it’s hard to encapsulate ten years of study in a few minutes, but he really is a legend.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: Rightfully so. I don’t believe that teachers like that exist today, certainly not in acting. He was dedicated to it and he was brilliant.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Was he an actor too?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: He had been, and he later went back to acting, later in his life, and he was wonderful. He was in <i>The Godfather II</i>. He was in a lot of movies then. </span><span class="s1">He was a wonderful actor, but I’m sure he was a better teacher, only because he was a phenomenal teacher. A lot of people said he was cruel. I saw him sometimes being ruthless, because he just wouldn’t put up with it. I guess he could be cruel. But, I never called it cruel. I called it “tough love” in a way. Acting? Come on, you know? You either got it or you don’t, in a lot of ways, and it’s not going to help you to get coddled. It’s not going to help you for somebody to pat you on the head and hear you, tell you some words you want to hear. What really is going to help you is for someone to kick you right in the rear end, and tell you the truth, and tell you a great deal of information about this complicated craft called acting that has been here since Greek days. It is, I believe, an important art form that human beings need, to see other human beings telling stories through their bodies, and that’s what Lee Strasberg taught how to do.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Who worked with you at that time with Strasberg? Were there other actors at the Studio who had an impact on you?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: Oh yeah. Gosh, lots. They were in and out all the time. I think I was more possessed than a lot of them. But you know, Richard Dreyfuss was in and out, Jack Nicholson was in and out, Ellen Burstyn was there all the time, and Bruce Dern was there all the time. Ron Rifkin, who I work with now (in <i>Brothers and Sisters</i>), I saw in and out all the time there. He lived a lot in New York, so I was the Los Angeles version. But I’d run into people all the time. Those days don’t exist like that, because I guess Lee isn’t there, and because film was changing. Film was just this lively vibrant thing. Movies were not made with the budgets they are now, and things were changing fast and acting was changing. The Actor’s Studio in Hollywood was just lit up with the thought of it, and people pushing out of their own boundaries.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Before <i>Norma Rae</i> you did <i>Sybil</i>, a role that brought you your first Emmy. Could you tell us about taking that on?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: After I did <i>Stay Hungry</i>, I serendipitously was reading — at the same time I got this call — this really interesting book, <i>Sybil</i>. And as luck would have it, Diane Crittenden, who had brought me in on <i>Stay Hungry</i>, against Bob Rafelson’s wishes, was casting this mini-series — one of the first mini-series’ that television did, actually, called <i>Sybil</i>. I knew in my heart that it was mine. I knew that I was the girl to play it. For so many reasons, I linked with her. Even just physically, because I have a childlike quality that I have fought against all my life, but there it is, and because of some troubled things in my life, I knew that this had to be mine. Diane Crittenden called me in, and again, it was this amazing battle to get the role. They didn’t want me in there. What was I doing? Had Diane Crittenden lost her mind?</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Hadn’t they seen you in <i>Stay Hungry</i>?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: <i>Stay Hungry</i> wasn’t out yet, I had just finished it. Most people didn’t know that I’d even done it. All these wonderful actresses wanted to do this role. Vanessa Redgrave wanted to do this, and here was little me! But I just knew this was mine. I came in as Sybil, which was difficult, because I wasn’t sure which one of her personalities I was going to be. But I came in and auditioned as <i>the</i> Sybil herself.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Which Sybil?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: The core Sybil that is without people, that is just a vapid, vacant soul that’s frightened of people, that can barely look up, that’s dour, dirty, and cannot deal with mankind, because all of her gifts and all of her colors are somewhere else, with other voices that will be revealed. I decided to come in as her. People were like, “Oh, my goodness! We had no idea that Sally Field was so terribly drab and depressed. I think Diane Crittenden knew what I was doing, and I came in and read. And they said, “Oh my. Okay, we’ll have her come back.” And of course…</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">I came back and came back and came back and came back and came back. And they kept saying, “This can’t be true. She can’t be the one. It can’t be her.” But some magical thing happened, and that is that I had the opportunity to do a test with Joanne Woodward. And again, it was one of these moments in my life where I instantly fell in love with someone like Don Porter. She opened her heart and her arms. I hadn’t met her, and I did one of the scenes with her that one of the characters was emotional and carrying on and crying. And I remember kneeling on the ground, and the video camera that’s trying to video you to do the auditions, trying to follow me around, and I’m like running all over. And he kneeled down on the ground and laid my head in her lap and sobbed. And she picked my face up and I took her sweater and wiped my nose on her sweater, snot off the thing. It wasn’t a costume. This is Joanne Woodward who’d come in. And there wasn’t a pause of, “What are you doing?” It was this enveloping. She enveloped me as this sobbing person. And it wasn’t Sally who looked up at her so desperately saying, “Don’t shut me out.” Or was it Sybil who looked up at her, one of Sybil’s characters desperately saying, “Don’t shut me out.” And I remember this sort of magic heat of that moment. They cut the audition, and I remember the quietness of the room. Joanne and I looked at each other. When I left the room, Joanne had said, “Don’t even dare thinking of someone else. That is Sybil.” Joanne made sure that it was me. It was a huge turning point in my life. It was a huge turning point in my career, but most especially because it was the first time I really got to do my work. It was the first time I got to do what I had studied so long to do, and what I was so sure I could do. It is the time that I learned how you throw yourself so deeply in your work that it doesn’t matter if you ever come back. It doesn’t matter if you ever come home, and that it’s more important that you be gone. And I was gone. And many times, I would have to call my mother to come pick me up and take me home. People would be worried about me, and how would I get out of there, the day’s work. And it was a very important time. It was Joanne Woodward and it was Dan Petrie, the director.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Did that role change your attitude toward mental illness or schizophrenia?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: Sybil had something that was a personality disorder. At that time it was called “multiple personality” and now it’s called something else, which is a very real thing but not called multiple personality. I wish I could remember exactly what it’s called, and it’s not schizophrenia. But Sybil — I think if you work in the arts, especially if you’re in the performing arts, especially if you’re an actor — I understood the illness so much, because I have those voices in those parts of myself that contain certain colors. There’s certain characters I’ve even given names as a child, that could be the strong one, or could be the sexy one or could be the shy one. And we, as human beings, accept that. I mean we don’t name them, and we don’t tell anyone that we feel that when we deal with our teachers we deal with somebody, and when we deal with our friends we deal with somebody. But I felt it very distinctly. So I really understood that particular mental illness, and subsequently have played other people with mental illness, and have felt very connected to it. I mean, thank God I can get out of it and go home, to an extent, but understand that there is this link between creativity and madness, and I have walked on that delicate line. I really understand that in the brain there is a place that, that madness and creativity sort of go like this with each other and have read about it. Later on, when I played someone who had bipolarism, I have great regard for people with mental illness and dealing with it. I am so lucky that I can flirt with it and come home.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>You’re referring to your <i>ER</i> character, and your second Emmy, I believe. What was it like to get an Emmy the first time?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: It was very weird after all the time I’d worked for it. That was the year that the Emmys were cancelled for some dispute that was going on, and then they had some other awards show. I thought, “Well, I guess I’ll go to that.” Jane Alexander won that one, and rightfully so for the magnificent performance she did playing Eleanor Roosevelt. And okay, that’s fine. Then there was an Emmys all of a sudden, and I was actually working in Northern California. It was such a confusing year. None of us really knew if it was a real Emmys or what was really going on. So I didn’t go down for it. I wasn’t there. It was bizarre.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>You mentioned having a strong side and a shy side and a sexy side. The sexy side came out very early in the movie <i>Smokey and the Bandit</i>. What was it like to show that side of yourself?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: I don’t know if that was really sexy as much as it was just there. </span><span class="s1">I did <i>Smokey and the Bandit</i> because <i>Sybil</i> was coming out, and everyone said, “Whoa, the work is extraordinary. It’s really good work…” or something like that, “…but man is Sally Field ugly! Man!” And I thought, “Oh God, okay.” And then Burt Reynolds, who was this really big box office star at the time, called me and said would I consider doing this, which I was completely flabbergasted that he would call me and do that. And there was no script. There was virtually no script. Since I wasn’t a person that had come from the New York stage, and I came from this sort of weird unorthodox background, I wasn’t one who stood on principle and said “Hmm, there seems to be no script here.” So I just took a leap of faith, and thought, well, you know, “If I play this character that Burt is supposed to think is attractive, maybe the world will think I’m attractive, and somebody else will hire me.” So I did it. And it was a great fun romp, journey, and certainly a good experience. And then it was all improv. It was almost entirely improvised.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Who was the director?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: It was Hal Needham, who was a stuntman, and he was never there because we would go off with the car and the camera mounts and it would be Burt and I. “Bye! We’ll let you know how it turns out”! We were just gone. So it was a very peculiar experience. But there it was, this iconic ’80s film that people loved.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Did not having a script mean you had time for romance to blossom?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: Yep, he and I dated for many years. It was an important influence in my life, an important character in my life. But ultimately not <i>the</i> character in my life. He was a great deal like my stepfather, interestingly enough. I haven’t spoken to him in a gazillion years. Oh, what am I saying? This is not true. He’s very much like my stepfather, and I think there’s a lot of sadness about Burt as a person. I think the country feels that about him. I think the country loved him, and I think he’s a very damaged person that couldn’t move on out of it in a lot of ways. I think the nation wanted him to be okay, and I think he’s an example of someone who couldn’t be. He couldn’t be okay. And I think the country feels sad about him.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Can you tell us how you got the part in <i>Norma Rae</i>?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: I was working, just as a working actress, doing the girl roles in most of Burt’s movies, which luckily is keeping me alive, ’cause now I have two little children. </span><span class="s1">I get a call when I was in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, doing like a “girl role” I call it. And that Marty Ritt, who at the time I knew, and considered one of the great acting directors. He really was offering me a role. I mean they were offering a role! Offering me a role? It wasn’t an ordinary event. I hadn’t read the script. I said, “Okay, I’ll come home.” I got to go home for two days. I hadn’t read the script. I didn’t have it; they couldn’t send it to me. I got home, my mother was there with my two sons while I was three weeks in Alabama, or wherever the heck it was I was. So I’m dashing about trying to get ready, not knowing what character to play as I go in. I know I have to be the character, but I don’t know what the character is. So I just decided to go in in beige. I remember, “I’ll just be beige. I won’t be anything. I’ll just be nothing.” And my mother sort of screaming to me that she read the script. And it’s about this like Southern girl, works in a mill. “What kind of mill?” So I went to meet Marty Ritt, and I hadn’t even read the script. I was just trying to fake it. But Marty Ritt was Marty Ritt. He was maybe more influential even than Lee Strasberg. He was a very, very important person in my life as a person. He taught me who I wanted to be. And as an actor, he took me on a journey.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>So he got more out of you maybe than you knew was there?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: No. </span><span class="s1">Everyone always says he got more out of me than…he would be the first to say that isn’t true. I knew it was there. He complicated my work in ways that I hadn’t done. And more than anything else, I think he applauded me. And I don’t know that I heard that kind of respect that I had worked for so hard from anyone as I did from him. He would watch me do my work as I created a character, and he directed me in the most subtle of ways to complicate things. He would add things. And in acting terms he kept throwing balls at me to see how many I could keep in the air, how many things I could do at the same time. Because now I had gotten adroit at being able to do, at complicating the work. How many things can you actually be working on at the same time? And so it became our language together of — when he would give me one too many. Would I mess it up or could I keep them in the air? And it was this love affair of the father I didn’t have, really, the real father. I mean what you want a father to be is someone to be a task master in a way, but to be…teach you in the most loving… but he was a terrible curmudgeon.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">If anybody knows Marty, he was known for being this, like, curmudgeon. So it wasn’t like ooey-gooey loving. It wasn’t at all. It was, you know, if you complained about anything, he’d say, “Hey Sal, I’ll run you a benefit.” You know, it was about pick yourself up, dust yourself off and keep on moving. By then it was a kind of practicality about life that I understood, that I appreciated, that I would rather live by. There was no sniveling. You just did your work and then you went home. But you did your work. You didn’t make any excuses, you did your work. And I became Norma. I lived there. I learned how to work in the mill. I learned, I lived with the people. I didn’t look for anything, I just did my work. I didn’t look for anybody to say anything to me, ’cause I wasn’t used to anybody saying anything to me really, except, “Get out of the room.” And one day Marty came into my little motor home. I was scared that he was coming in, like, what had I done? Had I done something bad? Still terribly afraid and intimidated that somehow I wouldn’t be good enough. Somehow I would be found out. I wouldn’t be good enough. And he came in and, and sat down for a minute. And I was drinking a coke or something, getting ready to get back out in the heat, and he said, “Sal, I want to tell you…” I said, “Yeah?” “You’re first rate.” And I was so utterly stunned. It was all he said. “You’re first rate.” And he got up and left. And then it was shattered. It was the most important thing anyone had ever said to me. It changed me and I was forever his daughter, his other child, his protégé. He said few things to me of encouragement, but I knew how deeply he cared. And all I ever did, all I wanted to do, was to be enough for him.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>He must have been more than proud when you won an Oscar for that role.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: He was sitting right there. He was nominated. He was nominated for best film. And it was his, in that the work was mine and I don’t give that to him, and he wouldn’t allow me to give that to him. He would be the first one to not allow that. I owned that. I earned it. It was mine. But he was Norma Rae. I <i>played</i> Norma Rae. He <i>was</i> Norma Rae. He was this amazing hero character in this gruff, curmudgeon kind of goofy character. He was. He walked the walk and talked the talk. And few people are like that today in my industry. He made films about people that mattered, about people who struggled. He made films that couldn’t be made. And he almost couldn’t get them made. And I think ultimately they killed him, but he got a lot of them made. And that kind of director, with such a clear knowledge and appreciation for acting and for cinematography, he didn’t take over to be the cinematographer. He loved the people that he hired, and he nurtured them the same way he did me — not by going “ooey gooey” or giving you a whole lot of, you know, blowing a lot of air up your skirt so you went, “Ah!” Ultimately, you didn’t believe anything they said. He said so few things, but he so deeply meant it that, it took a while before you could come back to the planet. He was rare. I hear him with me all the time. He talks to me. He says things. I hear him.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>You’ve mentioned that he helped you become more socially aware. Is that so?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: Yes, he did. He was very political. He’d been blackballed. He was around the set, the wonderful Ravitches — Harriet Frank and Irving Ravitch. They wrote <i>Norma Rae</i> and they were tremendously political. Wonderful writers, very good friends of Marty. And the set was alive with political thought. I had never been around that. I had never been around political thought, and I just absorbed it. I heard what it was like to care about your fellow man, and maybe more than that, for the first time I stood in someone else’s shoes that struggled in a way that I hadn’t. I had struggled, but not like this. And Norma changed me. To live in that kind of environment, with that kind of struggle in that kind of life, changed me.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>She changed a lot of us. It was a very inspiring movie. It looked hot there. Was it hot?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: It was very hot. It was real, it was what it was. We were literally in the mill. Most of the people in the film are the people there. They’re the people in the town, which was so incredibly invaluable to me because here you are — this Los Angeles kid who grew up in a working show business family — living for months on end. I’m living all day long, every day, sitting on the ground, eating lunch, going to have dinner, going to the drug store with so-and-so, and, “Hi, how are you?” You talk that language. You have that accent. You are one of them. You wear those clothes. You know them and love them. And it’s only acting that does that. Name another profession where you go do that. You live in their homes, you understand their lives, you eat with them, you shop with them. An economic state that luckily I haven’t had to endure. The way our country is going I may have to, who knows? But to understand them, and they talk to you. And a lot of people in the film that Marty used — you knew, when you had scenes where people were sitting around and talking about their problems — they didn’t know you were doing a movie. They would just raise up and start talking. They were really talking about what really… you know, that they didn’t have any opportunities. It was a town, that one industry, and they were stuck in it. They went in it early and they died young, and they had no other opportunities, and that particular industry was eating them up. And they weren’t given a chance to even go pee during the day. You don’t live that for three months and go away and be the same person.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Could you tell us about your role in <i>Places in the Heart</i>?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: Just a gift of an opportunity because, now I had Robert Benton, an unbelievably eloquent, beautiful writer, a wonderful man who was really telling the story of his own life. It was emotional for him. I was his grandmother, and it was such an interesting…we had this huge ensemble cast. When the film originally started out, it was Edna and Moze, and the story of the blind man and the sharecropper and big gorgeous black man, and this little woman was a tiny part of the story. And then there was these other stories, the things that were happening in town. Benton would tell me we all shot it, and ours — the thing in the farm — was the last one to shoot, and we shot that. We were there all the time in Waxahachie, Texas. And then when Benton went to make the movie, Moze and Edna took over. It was some odd thing that they became more the center of the film than some of the other stories. And I think it was Benton, subconsciously, because he was examining his grandmother that he was much more emotionally connected to than any of the other characters in the town. This did happen to his grandmother. Grandmother lost her husband, almost lost her children and — he believed — had a really long relationship with this man who came to farm her land. We don’t show that in the film, but we’d always go, “All right, come on, he doesn’t just leave here. Doesn’t he come back?” And it was an important, obviously important film for me, but also because it actually was the story of my grandmother in a way. So, it really linked up with things that were deeply ingrained in my person.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>When you accepted the second Oscar, you gave one of the most famous acceptance speeches of all time, and it’s almost always misquoted.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: I know. It is. They’ve made it to be what they want it to be. What it really is is about performing. </span><span class="s1">It is about the struggle of performing, and how hard it is to hear the applause really, when you spend all of your time with your head down, trying to be better, trying to get to a place where you can do the work. You have to pause yourself, to hear when you actually achieve what it is you set out to do. And that is that the character worked, the film worked, the work worked. My problem with this is that I wasn’t terribly eloquent about it. But then I’m not really terribly eloquent. The lights were flashing, and I think I said exactly what I really meant, that the first time it happened to me, I was so scared, and it was so overwhelming that all of this was really happening to me after I had come from what I had come from, which was an impossible place to be, when people wouldn’t let me in the door. And I was winning my second Oscar. I said to myself, “If I go up there, I must own this. It must be for me, and not for them. It must not matter whether I’d be pleasing to them.” And that’s what came out.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Maybe one of the reasons it’s so famous is that it was so authentic. It was very endearing, and we felt your soul it in. Recently you won another Emmy. Could you talk about how you were censored in accepting that?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: Right. I think being censored for that really does speak of our time right now, which is very frightening. </span><span class="s1">These are very, very frightening times. I won an Emmy this year, most especially because my character is the mother of a son who was in harm’s way. And if I won it — there were so many wonderful actors that were nominated for that Emmy — it was solely because of the impact of what that woman went through. And I owed it to the mothers who wait for their children to come home from harm’s way, from danger. And what I said was that, “As I owe this to those mothers, those brave mothers who wait for their children to come home from danger, from harm’s way and from war.” And they censored “war.” It made no sense. And it is really illustrative of Fox. It’s really illustrative of some of the networks and corporations that are running our institutions that should not be run by people who are going to say what should be heard and not heard. It’s kind of remarkable. The interesting thing was is because I was censored, so many more people heard it. It was huge. It was everywhere. It was huge. It was like the biggest seen thing on YouTube and all of that because they did that. If they would’ve just allowed me to say that, it was just simple. “From danger, from harm’s way, and from war.” Duh! And the mothers who stand there and wait for their children to return, how is that political?</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>In <i>Absence of Malice</i>, you worked with Paul Newman. Can you talk about that?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: Just one of these really lucky wonderful moments. A remarkable, wonderful man who is absolutely an icon, who had continued to represent not only a really wonderful actor, but what it is to be a wonderful human being. He’s learned from a lot of painful things that have happened in his life, losing a son, and being a big sexy icon kind of thing, which was a huge invasion in his life. He has taken all that information, and it has made him one of the most important people I’ve ever known as a human being, an example of “Who are you in the human race?” That’s Paul Newman, and I am lucky to know him and lucky to have worked with him. God gave me a gift. And isn’t it interesting, it was Paul and his wife, Joanne Woodward. Just really remarkable people.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>When you got the script for<i> Forrest Gump</i>, was Tom Hanks already attached to it?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: Yes. Tom and Bob called me together. Tom is also one of those people that is just simply remarkable. And how hard he works at it, to be human. Tom and Bob <span class="s2">(Robert Zemeckis)</span> called and said, “We want you to read this. Now don’t be mad, because you’d play Tom’s mother. Now don’t be mad.” I was doing <i>Mrs. Doubtfire</i> at the time. Of course I read it and said, “I’m there. I am honored. It is a wonderful piece. Tom will be beyond belief. Can I make muffins? What can I do?” That’s all there was to it.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>How much older than Tom Hanks are you?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: In real life I’m 10 years older.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>That was an interesting casting choice, wasn’t it?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: Yeah, but it was great fun, because I got to play much younger than I was, and then I played much older than I was. I was incredibly honored that Tom and Bob <span class="s2">(Robert Zemeckis)</span> would want me to do it.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>On <i>ER</i> you played a character with bipolar disorder. You’ve also spoken out recently about osteoporosis and are often seen on TV talking about it.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: Yes, I am, I am, I am. I care very much about women’s health issues, and probably because it relates to me, and because I am a part of the baby-boomer generation of women that are growing older. I feel kind of lost, like we don’t really have enough information. First they told us to take this, and then they said, “Oh God, don’t take that. No, don’t take that.” So what are we supposed to do?</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">I felt outraged at the lack of research that had been done for women in the past about heart disease and God knows what. So I was diagnosed with osteoporosis at the same time when I was really approached by — if there are like good drug companies, and I think there are, these two companies are really good in that they try. They’re a business, yes. But they wanted me to be the spokesperson, but they allowed me to say there’s other choices. What’s the important thing is to understand what a huge threat this is to women. It is a huge threat, that one out of two women — that’s half, folks — are going to suffer an osteoporosis-related fracture in their lives. And there’s 16 billion dollars spent a year in trying to repair fractures that happen to people from osteoporosis that could be prevented. And in many cases — and I get on this rampage because it becomes part of the healthcare system, which is so terribly, terribly broken in this country. If you would pay for the bone density test — healthcare plans — and help people to pay for these medications, then you wouldn’t have to pay 16 billion dollars to help these people if they do fracture a hip, a spine, a leg. Which doesn’t mean you do that because you go skiing. If you have osteoporosis that goes undiagnosed or untreated, you can break your hip or your spine from sitting down on a hard bench. It becomes that porous and that dangerous, and ultimately can greatly impinge on your lifespan. So, I go, “Whoa! What is wrong with this country?”</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>You may be playing Mary Todd Lincoln in a Steven Spielberg film about Lincoln. Is that right?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: If Steven ever does it, and he keeps saying he’s going to. Janusz Kaminski would be the cinematographer, and I hope he does it. I told Steven once, I don’t know what’ll happen, but I know that Mary Todd is mine. I’ve always felt physically Mary Toddish, and because I understand the kind of mental place she was in. Steven asked me to do it and I was, “Whoa! I will absolutely be there.” He’s working on the script. It needs to be done in this country. And it needs to be done by Steven Spielberg. We need to see what it was like to have a fine and brilliant leader who rose to the occasion in great adversity. We need to see that, and how that strength, and that brilliance, and that tremendous sacrifice really allowed us to be the country we are — still, I hope.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Speaking of Lincoln, what does the American Dream mean to you?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sally Field: You know, it’s changing. </span><span class="s1">I’m frightened for the American Dream. I’m so terribly frightened for America. The American Dream really was to have possibilities, to be safe and have possibilities. It is what — my children say this to me sometimes, that I shouldn’t have said, and I can’t help it — I will still say it, but you can be whatever you want to be. If you want it, work on it, devote your life to it. And anything’s possible. And my children say, “Well, we’re the generation that you’ve said that to, and that was bad because we expect that anything’s possible.” Well, God damn it! And I would be censored if that were Fox. I do think that anything is possible. It doesn’t mean you won’t be drug behind the wagon for some length of time. That’s what America once was. I am very worried about our country though. We need some leadership. We need some bold, brave leadership. We need Abraham Lincoln.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Miss Field, thank you so much for this interview. It’s been delightful.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">You’re welcome.</span></p> </div>  </aside>  <div class="read-more__toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#full-interview"><a href="#" class="sans-4 btn">Read full interview</a></div> </article> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="gallery" role="tabpanel"> <section class="isotope-wrapper">  <header class="toolbar toolbar--gallery bg-white clearfix"> <div class="col-md-6"> <div class="serif-4">Sally Field Gallery</div> </div> <div class="col-md-6 text-md-right isotope-toolbar"> <ul class="list-unstyled list-inline m-b-0 text-brand-primary sans-4"> <li class="list-inline-item" data-filter=".photo"><i class="icon-icon_camera"></i>31 photos</li> </ul> </div> </header> <div class="isotope-gallery isotope-box single-achiever__gallery clearfix"> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5049504950495" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-003-field-42-17100785.jpg" data-image-caption="Sally Field, recipient of two Oscars for Best Actress, in 2006. (© Phil McCarten/Reuters/Corbis)" data-image-copyright="USA - Disney - ABC Television Group All Star Party" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-003-field-42-17100785-252x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-003-field-42-17100785-505x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.0526315789474" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-032-Field-Sally-photofest-Sally_Field_family_auto_2.jpg" data-image-caption="Sally Field, her stepfather Jock Mahoney, her mother Margaret Field, and her brother Rick Field (ca. 1952) (HFC/Photofest)" data-image-copyright="fie0-032 - Field Sally photofest Sally_Field_family_auto_2" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-032-Field-Sally-photofest-Sally_Field_family_auto_2-361x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-032-Field-Sally-photofest-Sally_Field_family_auto_2-722x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.303602058319" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-031-Field-photofest-Sally_Field_1960s_2.jpg" data-image-caption="Sally Field (late 1960s) (Photofest)" data-image-copyright="Sally Field (late 1960s)(Credit:Photofest)" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-031-Field-photofest-Sally_Field_1960s_2-292x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-031-Field-photofest-Sally_Field_1960s_2-583x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.415270018622" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-030-Field-Sally-photofest-Sally_Field_Late_60s.jpg" data-image-caption="Sally Field (circa 1967) (Photofest)" data-image-copyright="Sally Field (circa 1967) (Credit: Photofest)" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-030-Field-Sally-photofest-Sally_Field_Late_60s-269x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-030-Field-Sally-photofest-Sally_Field_Late_60s-537x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.0284167794317" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-029-Field_Sally_AP_6309070164.jpg" data-image-caption="American film director George Stevens, Jr. with Paul Newman and director Martin Ritt at the 1963 Venice Film Festival. Sally Field starred with Newman in "Absence of Malice." Martin Ritt directed her in her breakthrough role in "Norma Rae." (AP Images/Mario Torris)" data-image-copyright="George Stevens Paul Newman Martin Ritt" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-029-Field_Sally_AP_6309070164-369x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-029-Field_Sally_AP_6309070164-739x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.72368421052632" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-028-Field_Sally_Corbis_U2008031.jpg" data-image-caption="Burt Reynolds and Sally Field in the 1978 blockbuster "Smokey and the Bandit." (© Bettmann/Corbis)" data-image-copyright="Sally Field and Burt Reynolds in Movie Still" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-028-Field_Sally_Corbis_U2008031-380x275.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-028-Field_Sally_Corbis_U2008031-760x550.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.0066225165563" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-027-Field-Sally-HU047179.jpg" data-image-caption="Legendary acting teacher Lee Strasberg of the Actors Studio. He mentored scores of young actors, including Sally Field. (© Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS)" data-image-copyright="Acting Teacher and Actor Lee Strasberg, 1956" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-027-Field-Sally-HU047179-378x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-027-Field-Sally-HU047179-755x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4931237721022" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-026-Field-Sally-photofest-Brothers_and_Sisters_2006_24.jpg" data-image-caption="Sally Field, award-winning actress. (PhotoFest)" data-image-copyright="Brothers &amp; Sisters (ABC) Season 1, Fall 2006Shown: Sally Field" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-026-Field-Sally-photofest-Brothers_and_Sisters_2006_24-255x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-026-Field-Sally-photofest-Brothers_and_Sisters_2006_24-509x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.216" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-025-Field-photofest-SYB_Woodward_Field.jpg" data-image-caption="Sally Field and Joanne Woodward in the television film "Sybil." Field credits Sybil with helping her win the role. Sybil brought Sally Field her first recognition as a serious actress, and her first Emmy Award. (PhotoFest)" data-image-copyright="fie0-025 - Field photofest SYB_Woodward_Field" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-025-Field-photofest-SYB_Woodward_Field-313x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-025-Field-photofest-SYB_Woodward_Field-625x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.65" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-024-Field-photofest-Places_In_Heart_1984_108.jpg" data-image-caption="Danny Glover and Sally Field as Moze and Edna in the 1994 film "Places in the Heart." (PhotoFest)" data-image-copyright="fie0-024 - Field photofest Places_In_Heart_1984_108" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-024-Field-photofest-Places_In_Heart_1984_108-380x247.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-024-Field-photofest-Places_In_Heart_1984_108-760x494.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.2859560067682" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-022-Field-Sally-photofest-Gidget_ABC_4.jpg" data-image-caption="Actor Don Porter played Sally Field's father on the TV series "Gidget." She credits his soft-spoken emotional support with getting her through her first season in television. (PhotoFest)" data-image-copyright="fie0-022 - Field Sally photofest Gidget_ABC_4" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-022-Field-Sally-photofest-Gidget_ABC_4-295x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-022-Field-Sally-photofest-Gidget_ABC_4-591x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.2816188870152" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-021-Field-Sally-photofest-Gidget_ABC_5.jpg" data-image-caption="Sally Field in her role as boy-crazy surfer Gidget in the 1960s television series. (PhotoFest)" data-image-copyright="fie0-021 - Field Sally photofest Gidget_ABC_5" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-021-Field-Sally-photofest-Gidget_ABC_5-297x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-021-Field-Sally-photofest-Gidget_ABC_5-593x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.0749646393211" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-020-Field-Sally-photofest-Sally_Field_family_auto_1.jpg" data-image-caption="Sally Field and her brother Richard, with their stepfather, stuntman and actor Jock Mahoney, costumed for a role on one of his television Westerns in the 1950s. (PhotoFest) " data-image-copyright="fie0-020 - Field Sally photofest Sally_Field_family_auto_1" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-020-Field-Sally-photofest-Sally_Field_family_auto_1-353x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-020-Field-Sally-photofest-Sally_Field_family_auto_1-707x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.252688172043" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-019-Field-Sally-photofest-mvsrch_front.jpg" data-image-caption="Actress Margaret Field, mother of Sally Field. (PhotoFest)" data-image-copyright="Actress Margaret Field, 1950s (mother of actress Sally Field)" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-019-Field-Sally-photofest-mvsrch_front-303x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-019-Field-Sally-photofest-mvsrch_front.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.252688172043" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-018-Field-Sally-photofest-mvsrch_front.jpg" data-image-caption="Actress Margaret Field, mother of Sally Field. (PhotoFest)" data-image-copyright="Actress Margaret Field, 1950s (mother of actress Sally Field)" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-018-Field-Sally-photofest-mvsrch_front-303x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-018-Field-Sally-photofest-mvsrch_front.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.2258064516129" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-017-Field-Sally-photofest-3-mvsrch_front.jpg" data-image-caption="Actress Margaret Field, mother of Sally Field. (PhotoFest) " data-image-copyright="Actress Margaret Field, 1950s (mother of actress Sally Field)" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-017-Field-Sally-photofest-3-mvsrch_front-310x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-017-Field-Sally-photofest-3-mvsrch_front.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4205607476636" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-016-2008konasummit1419_1.jpg" data-image-caption="Sally Field presents the Golden Plate Award to Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys at the 2008 International Achievement Summit in Hawaii. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="fie0-016 - 2008konasummit1419_1" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-016-2008konasummit1419_1-268x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-016-2008konasummit1419_1-535x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.501976284585" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-015-2008konasummit0746_1.jpg" data-image-caption="Sally Field addresses student delegates at the 2008 International Achievement Summit in Hawaii. (© Academy of Achievement.)" data-image-copyright="fie0-015 - 2008konasummit0746_1" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-015-2008konasummit0746_1-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-015-2008konasummit0746_1-506x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.62894736842105" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-014-2008konasummit0745_1.jpg" data-image-caption="Sally Field describes the struggles of her early career at the 2008 International Achievement Summit in Hawaii. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="fie0-014- 2008konasummit0745_1" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-014-2008konasummit0745_1-380x239.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-014-2008konasummit0745_1-760x478.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66447368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-013-Field-Sally-AP-8503250139.jpg" data-image-caption="Actor Robert Duvall presents Sally Field with an Oscar for her performance in "Places in the Heart." (AP Images)" data-image-copyright="Oscar Winners" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-013-Field-Sally-AP-8503250139-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-013-Field-Sally-AP-8503250139-760x505.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4643545279383" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-012-Field-Sally-AP-800414030.jpg" data-image-caption="Sally Field and Dustin Hoffman display Oscars won for their performances in "Norma Rae" and "Kramer vs. Kramer" at the Oscar ceremony in Los Angeles, 1980. (AP Images)" data-image-copyright="FIELD AND HOFFMAN WIN OSCAR" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-012-Field-Sally-AP-800414030-260x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-012-Field-Sally-AP-800414030-519x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4901960784314" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-011-field-UT0089229.jpg" data-image-caption="Sally Field after winning an Emmy Award for her performance on the series "ER" in 2001. (© Reuters/CORBIS) " data-image-copyright="ACTRESS SALLY FIELD WINS EMMY AWARD" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-011-field-UT0089229-255x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-011-field-UT0089229-510x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.2199036918138" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-010-field-UT0089226.jpg" data-image-caption="Sally Field receives a second Emmy Award in 2001 for her performance in the series "ER." (© Bettmann/CORBIS)" data-image-copyright="SALLY FIELD HOLDS EMMY AFTER WINNING AT CREATIVE EMMY AWARDS" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-010-field-UT0089226-312x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-010-field-UT0089226-623x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.76052631578947" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-009-field-U85143097.jpg" data-image-caption="Sally Field and F. Murray Abraham celebrate their Oscar wins in 1995. Field was named Best Actress for her performance in "Places in the Heart." Abraham won Best Actor for his role in Amadeus. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)" data-image-copyright="Frank M. Abraham and Sally Fields' with Oscars" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-009-field-U85143097-380x289.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-009-field-U85143097-760x578.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66973684210526" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-008-field-U1998253.jpg" data-image-caption="Sally Field won an Oscar for her performance as a textile worker turned union organizer in "Norma Rae." (© Bettmann/CORBIS) " data-image-copyright="Sally Field in" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-008-field-U1998253-380x255.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-008-field-U1998253-760x509.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.99342105263158" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-007-field-U1499755.jpg" data-image-caption="Sally Field and future husband Steven Craig at a Hollywood premiere in 1965. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)" data-image-copyright="Sally Field with Steve Craig" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-007-field-U1499755-380x377.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-007-field-U1499755-760x755.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.98552631578947" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-006-field-E9750.jpg" data-image-caption="Sally Field played the airborne Sister Bertrille in three seasons of the popular television show "The Flying Nun," from 1967 to 1970. (© Bettmann/Corbis)" data-image-copyright="Sally Field as Sister Bertrille" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-006-field-E9750-380x375.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-006-field-E9750-760x749.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66578947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-005-field-42-19522050.jpg" data-image-caption="Actress Marg Helgenberg and Sally Field at the 2008 Screen Actors Guild Awards. (Mario Anzuoni/Reuters/Corbis)" data-image-copyright="USA - 14th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards® - Ceremony" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-005-field-42-19522050-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-005-field-42-19522050-760x506.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5049504950495" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-004-field-42-18932915.jpg" data-image-caption="Sally Field accepts a 2007 Emmy Award for Outstanding Performance by a Leading Actress in a Dramatic Series, for her performance in "Brothers and Sisters." (© Frank Trapper/Corbis) " data-image-copyright="USA - 2007 Emmy® Awards - Press Room" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-004-field-42-18932915-252x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-004-field-42-18932915-505x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5767634854772" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-002-field-0000298124-004.jpg" data-image-caption="Sally Field as Mrs. Gump in the Oscar-winning classic "Forrest Gump." (© Bureau L.A. Collection/Corbis)" data-image-copyright="THE FILM: 'FORREST GUMP' BY ROBERT ZEMECKIS" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-002-field-0000298124-004-241x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-002-field-0000298124-004-482x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.68947368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-033-Field-Sally-photofest-AOM_Newman_Field.jpg" data-image-caption="1981: "Absence of Malice," directed by Sydney Pollack. Shown: Paul Newman (as Michael Colin Gallagher), Sally Field (as Megan Carter)." data-image-copyright="fie0-033 - Field Sally photofest AOM_Newman_Field" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-033-Field-Sally-photofest-AOM_Newman_Field-380x262.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fie0-033-Field-Sally-photofest-AOM_Newman_Field-760x524.jpg"></div>  </figure>    </div> </section> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <footer class="editorial-article__footer col-md-8 col-md-offset-4"> <div class="editorial-article__next-link sans-3"> <a href="#"><strong>What's next:</strong> <span class="editorial-article__next-link-title">profile</span></a> </div> <ul class="social list-unstyled list-inline ssk-group m-b-0"> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-facebook" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Facebook"><i class="icon-icon_facebook-circle"></i></a></li> <li class="list-inline-item"><a 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Collins, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/denton-a-cooley/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Denton A. Cooley, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/francis-ford-coppola/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Francis Ford Coppola</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ray-dalio/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Dalio</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/olivia-de-havilland/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Olivia de Havilland</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/michael-e-debakey-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Michael E. DeBakey, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/michael-dell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Michael S. Dell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/joan-didion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joan Didion</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/rita-dove/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rita Dove</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sylvia-earle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sylvia Earle, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/elbaradei/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mohamed ElBaradei</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/gertrude-elion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Gertrude B. Elion, M.Sc.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/larry-j-ellison/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry J. Ellison</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nora-ephron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nora Ephron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/julius-erving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Julius Erving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tony-fadell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tony Fadell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/paul-farmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Farmer, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/suzanne-farrell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzanne Farrell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sally-field/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally Field</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/milton-friedman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Milton Friedman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carlos-fuentes/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Fuentes</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/athol-fugard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Athol Fugard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ernest-j-gaines/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernest J. Gaines</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/william-h-gates-iii/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William H. Gates III</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-gehry/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank O. Gehry</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Vince Gill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ruth-bader-ginsburg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ruth Bader Ginsburg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/louise-gluck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louise Glück</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/whoopi-goldberg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Whoopi Goldberg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jane-goodall/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Jane Goodall</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/doris-kearns-goodwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mikhail-s-gorbachev/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mikhail S. Gorbachev</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nadine-gordimer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nadine Gordimer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-jay-gould/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carol-greider-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol Greider, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-grisham/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Grisham</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/dorothy-hamill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dorothy Hamill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lauryn-hill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lauryn Hill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-edmund-hillary/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Edmund Hillary</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/reid-hoffman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reid Hoffman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/khaled-hosseini/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Khaled Hosseini, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ron-howard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Howard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-hume/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Hume</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/louis-ignarro-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louis Ignarro, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/daniel-inouye/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Daniel K. Inouye</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jeremy-irons/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jeremy Irons</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Irving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-peter-jackson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Peter Jackson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-m-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank M. Johnson, Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/philip-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Philip C. Johnson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/chuck-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Chuck Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-earl-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Earl Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/quincy-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Quincy Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/thomas-keller-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Thomas Keller</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/anthony-m-kennedy/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony M. Kennedy</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/b-b-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">B.B. King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carole-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carole King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/coretta-scott-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Coretta Scott King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/henry-kissinger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry A. Kissinger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wendy-kopp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wendy Kopp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/henry-r-kravis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry R. Kravis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nicholas-d-kristof/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nicholas D. Kristof</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mike-krzyzewski/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mike Krzyzewski</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ray-kurzwell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Kurzweil</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/eric-lander-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Eric S. Lander, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/robert-s-langer-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert S. Langer, Sc.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/richard-leakey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard E. Leakey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Congressman John R. Lewis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/maya-lin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Lin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George Lucas</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/norman-mailer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman Mailer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/peyton-manning/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peyton Manning</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wynton-marsalis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wynton Marsalis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John C. Mather, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/johnny-mathis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Mathis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/willie-mays/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willie Mays</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-mccourt/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank McCourt</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-mccullough/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David McCullough</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/audra-mcdonald/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Audra McDonald</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-william-h-mcraven/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral William H. McRaven, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/w-s-merwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">W. S. Merwin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-a-michener/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James A. Michener</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/marvin-minsky-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Marvin Minsky, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mario J. Molina, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/n-scott-momaday-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/story-musgrave/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Story Musgrave, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ralph-nader/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ralph Nader</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/peggy-noonan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peggy Noonan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jessye-norman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jessye Norman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tommy-norris/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Thomas R. Norris, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/joyce-carol-oates/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joyce Carol Oates</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/pierre-omidyar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pierre Omidyar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/larry-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/arnold-palmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Arnold Palmer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/rosa-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rosa Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/suzan-lori-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzan-Lori Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linus C. Pauling, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/shimon-peres/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shimon Peres</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-david-petraeus/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General David H. Petraeus, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sidney-poitier/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sidney Poitier</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-colin-l-powell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Colin L. Powell, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/harold-prince/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Harold Prince</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lloyd-richards/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lloyd Richards</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sally-ride-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally K. Ride, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sonny-rollins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonny Rollins</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/anthony-romero/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony Romero</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-rosenquist/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Rosenquist</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/pete-rozelle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pete Rozelle</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/bill-russell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Bill Russell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/albie-sachs/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Albie Sachs</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/oliver-sacks-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Oliver Sacks, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jonas-salk-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jonas Salk, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frederick-sanger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick Sanger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/barry-scheck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Barry Scheck</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/richard-evans-schultes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard Evans Schultes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-h-norman-schwarzkopf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-schwarzman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen A. Schwarzman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/glenn-t-seaborg-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Glenn T. Seaborg, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/neil-sheehan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Neil Sheehan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-alan-shepard-jr/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral Alan B. Shepard, Jr., USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ellen-johnson-sirleaf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ellen Johnson Sirleaf</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carlos-slim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Slim Helú</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170626162030/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frederick-w-smith/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick W. 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