Sally Margaret Field (born November 6, 1946) is an American actress. Known for her extensive work on screen and stage, she has received numerous accolades throughout her career spanning over five decades, including two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and three Primetime Emmy Awards, in addition to nominations for a Tony Award and two British Academy Film Awards. She was presented with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2014, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2019, and a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2023.
Field began her career on television, starring in the comedies Gidget (1965–1966), The Flying Nun (1967–1970), and The Girl with Something Extra (1973–1974). She received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie for the NBC television film Sybil (1976). Her film debut was as an extra in Moon Pilot (1962) followed by starring roles in Stay Hungry (1976), The Way West (1976) Smokey and the Bandit (1977), Heroes (1977), The End (1978), and Hooper (1978). She won two Academy Awards for Best Actress for Norma Rae (1979), and Places in the Heart (1984). Other notable roles include in Smokey and the Bandit II (1980), Absence of Malice (1981), Kiss Me Goodbye (1982), Murphy's Romance (1985), Steel Magnolias (1989), Soapdish (1991), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), and Forrest Gump (1994).
In the 2000s, Field returned to television with a recurring role on the NBC medical drama ER, for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series in 2001. For her role of Nora Walker in the ABC drama series Brothers & Sisters (2006-2011), Field won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. She portrayed Mary Todd Lincoln in Lincoln (2012), for which she received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination. She portrayed Aunt May in The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and its 2014 sequel. Other roles include in the films Hello, My Name Is Doris (2015), and 80 for Brady (2023), as well as in the Netflix limited series Maniac (2018).
She made her professional stage debut in the Broadway revival of Edward Albee's The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? in 2002. Field returned to the stage after an absence of 15 years with the 2017 revival of Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie, for which she received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. She made her debut on the West End theatre in the revival of Arthur Miller's All My Sons in 2019.
Early life
Sally Field was born on November 6, 1946, in Pasadena, California, to Margaret Field (née Morlan), an actress, and Richard Dryden Field, who served in the Army during World War II. Her brother is Richard D. Field, a physicist and an academic. Her parents were divorced in 1950; afterward, her mother married Jock Mahoney, an actor and a stuntman. Field said in her 2018 memoir that she was sexually abused by Mahoney during her childhood.
As a teen, Field attended Portola Middle School and Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, where she was a cheerleader. Her classmates included financier Michael Milken, actress Cindy Williams, and talent agent Michael Ovitz.
