Sally Field: Burt Reynolds Threw ‘Norma Rae’ Script at Me

Sally Field has never shied away from the complicated truth of her years with Burt Reynolds. But in a new conversation with People, the two-time Oscar winner goes deeper than ever — describing a relationship that was, in the same breath, full of love and full of damage.

“It was a very complicated relationship,” Field, 79, told the outlet, reflecting on a photo of herself and the late actor from their 1977 film Smokey and the Bandit. “There were parts of Burt that were so wonderful and lovable, and then there were parts that were really frightening, and he was very much like my stepfather.”

She drew the comparison carefully but plainly. “That’s the complication of what loving a very complicated person is, especially when you’re a child, because my stepfather was both wonderful and evil,” she said. “So, he taught me that love is wonderful and dangerous.”

Field has spoken before about Reynolds’ controlling behavior during their five-year on-and-off relationship. But the specific story she tells about Norma Rae — the 1979 drama that would change her life — is something else entirely.

The Script That Changed Everything

When the role of union organizer Norma Rae Webster came across her path, Field wanted it badly. Reynolds did not want her to have it. His objection? The character had a sexual past.

“It was the beginning of me pulling away when he didn’t want me to do Norma Rae, called her a whore, and it was because she had some sexual past,” Field told People. “He threw the script at me. He wanted to control me, and because I was standing up, he said, ‘Boy, you’re letting this get the better of you.’ And I said, ‘This is the better of me.’ And I went and I met with [director] Marty Ritt. I did the film.”

She paused on what that moment meant. “It was the beginning of me finding my legs.”

Field went to Cannes for the film’s premiere. Reynolds tried to discourage that too. She went anyway — and the response floored her.

“It was a standing ovation for like 10 minutes, and I started to cry,” she recalled. “I just was like, ‘What?’ After I had worked so hard to get out of television, to even be considered for anything, and here I was.”

The film earned her an Oscar nomination. Reynolds wasn’t moved. According to TCM host Dave Karger’s book 50 Oscar Nights, Reynolds told Field, “You don’t think you’re going to win anything, do you?” — and then refused to be her date to the 52nd Academy Awards.

“He really was not a nice guy around me then,” Field admitted, as quoted in the book.

Karger told Fox News Digital he still struggles to make sense of it. “I have a hard time understanding what Sally Field told me about how unsupportive Burt Reynolds was. This was at the time when she was receiving all of this acclaim for Norma Rae.” He added: “I can only guess that there were issues of control and jealousy. I think it’s really unfortunate that he couldn’t have been more supportive publicly and privately.”

Field didn’t go to the Oscars alone. Actor David Steinberg stepped in. “David said, ‘Well, for God’s sakes, we’ll take you,’” she recalled. “He and Judy made it a big celebration. They picked me up in a limousine and had champagne in the car. They made it just wonderful fun.”

She won Best Actress that night.

‘I Eventually Could Stand Up to Burt’

Field and Reynolds made four films together — Smokey and the Bandit, its 1980 sequel, and Hooper and The End, both in 1978. But Field is candid about what that output actually represented for her.

“I really only did one movie with Burt, which was Smokey and the Bandit,” she said. “The others that I was in, I was just a girl. I just was stuck there because I was sort of stuck altogether.”

The two met after Field had made her TV comeback in Sybil, following the years after The Flying Nun. What started as chemistry on the Smokey set became something harder to name.

“I eventually could stand up to Burt and I could eventually walk away,” she said. “Because Burt wanted to control my work. He could hurt me, he could humiliate me, but don’t mess with my work because it meant more to me than work.”

Playing Norma Rae, she says, was the thing that made the difference. “Being Norma at that time was exactly what I needed, because to learn how to stand in her shoes, I could feel my own legs. I could feel my body getting stronger. Because I was having to portray how she grew up, I started to grow up, and I eventually just wouldn’t be manipulated and humiliated like that. And ultimately I left.”

They split for good in 1982. Reynolds married Loni Anderson in 1988; that marriage ended in 1994. He died in September 2018 at 82.

In a 2015 Vanity Fair interview, Reynolds called Field “the love of my life.” Days after his death, her memoir In Pieces was published. In it, she wrote: “By the time we met, the weight of his stardom had become a way for Burt to control everyone around him, and from the moment I walked through the door, it was a way to control me.” And also: “We were a perfect match of flaws.”

She told The New York Times at the time that she was glad he wasn’t alive to read it. “This would hurt him. I felt glad that he wasn’t going to read it, he wasn’t going to be asked about it, and he wasn’t going to have to defend himself or lash out, which he probably would have. I did not want to hurt him any further.”

When Reynolds died, Field released a statement to the Associated Press that said everything about how she’d always carried him, even from a distance. “There are times in your life that are so indelible, they never fade away. They stay alive, even 40 years later. My years with Burt never leave my mind. He will be in my history and my heart, for as long as I live. Rest, Buddy.”

Field is currently starring in Remarkably Bright Creatures, now streaming on Netflix, in which she plays a widow who forms an unexpected bond with an octopus at an aquarium. The role, and the press around it, has brought her back to these memories — and she’s clearly not done making sense of them.

“I didn’t know what to do,” she said of that Oscar night without Reynolds. Then she got in the limousine, had the champagne, and won anyway.