1965–1976 on
NBC's
The Girl with Something Extra (1973)|left|269x269pxField got her start on television as the boy-crazy
surfer girl in the sitcom
Gidget (
ABC, 1965–1966). The show was not an initial success and was cancelled after a single season; however, summer reruns garnered respectable ratings, making the show a belated success. Wanting to find a new starring vehicle for Field, ABC next produced
The Flying Nun with Field cast as Sister Bertrille for three seasons, from 1967 to 1970. In an interview included on the Season One DVD release, Field said that she thoroughly enjoyed
Gidget but hated
The Flying Nun because she was not treated with respect by the show's directors. During her time on
The Flying Nun, Field had a brief singing career, recording an album (
Star of The Flying Nun, 1967) and a number of singles. Field was then
typecast, finding respectable roles difficult to obtain. In 1971, Field starred in the ABC
television film ''
Maybe I'll Come Home in the Spring, playing a discouraged teen runaway who returns home with a bearded, drug-abusing hippie (played by David Carradine). She made several guest television appearances through the mid-1970s, including a role on the Western Alias Smith and Jones, a popular series starring Gidget
co-star Pete Duel. She also appeared in the episode "Whisper" on the thriller Night Gallery''. In 1973, Field was cast in a starring role opposite
John Davidson in the series
The Girl with Something Extra that aired from 1973 to 1974. Following the series' cancellation, Field studied at the
Actors Studio with acting teacher
Lee Strasberg. Strasberg became a mentor to Field, helping her move past her television image of the girl next door. During this period, Field divorced her first husband in 1975. Soon after studying with Strasberg, Field landed the title role in the 1976 television film
Sybil, based on
the book by
Flora Rheta Schreiber. Her dramatic portrayal of a young woman afflicted with
dissociative identity disorder earned her an
Emmy Award for
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Special Program – Drama or Comedy in 1977 and enabled her to break through the typecasting of her sitcom work. She received further strong reviews for her work in the 1976 film
Stay Hungry, opposite
Jeff Bridges and
Arnold Schwarzenegger.
1977–1989 in
Sybil (1976) In 1977, Field co-starred with
Burt Reynolds,
Jackie Gleason, and
Jerry Reed in the
year's second-highest-grossing film,
Smokey and the Bandit. In 1979, she played the titular union organizer in
Norma Rae, a film that established her as a dramatic actress.
Vincent Canby, reviewing the film for
The New York Times, wrote: "
Norma Rae is a seriously concerned contemporary drama, illuminated by some very good performances and one, Miss Field's, that is spectacular." For her role in
Norma Rae, Field won the
Best Female Performance Prize at the
Cannes Film Festival and the
Academy Award for Best Actress. Field appeared with Reynolds in three more films:
The End,
Hooper, and
Smokey and the Bandit II. In 1981, she continued to change her image, playing a foul-mouthed prostitute opposite
Tommy Lee Jones in the South-set film
Back Roads. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for the 1981 drama
Absence of Malice and the 1982 comedy
Kiss Me Goodbye. In the 1984 drama
Places in the Heart, she starred as Edna Spalding, a farm widow struggling to weather the
Great Depression. She won her second
Golden Globe Award and second
Oscar. Field's acceptance speech has since been both admired as earnest and parodied as excessive, mainly the line, "And I can't deny the fact that you like me...right now...you like me! (applause) Thank you!" Field later parodied herself when she delivered the line (often misquoted as "You like me, you
really like me!") in a
Charles Schwab commercial. In 1985, she co-starred with
James Garner in the romantic comedy ''
Murphy's Romance. The following year, Field appeared on the cover of the March 1986 issue of Playboy'' magazine, in which she was the interview subject. She did not appear as a pictorial subject in the magazine, although she did wear the classic
leotard and bunny-ears outfit on the cover. That year, she received the
Women in Film Crystal Award. For her role as matriarch M'Lynn in the film version of
Steel Magnolias (1989), she was nominated for a 1990 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress.
1990–present In the early 1990s, Field had supporting roles in a number of films. These included
Disney's live-action film
Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey (1993), where she voiced the role of Sassy. In
Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), she played the wife of
Robin Williams's character and the love interest of
Pierce Brosnan's character. She then played
Tom Hanks's mother in
Forrest Gump (1994), even though she was only 10 years older than Hanks, with whom she had co-starred six years earlier in
Punchline. For Forrest Gump, she received
BAFTA and
SAG nominations. in 2002 Field's other 1990s films included
Not Without My Daughter, a controversial thriller based on the real-life experience of
Betty Mahmoody's escape from Iran with her daughter
Mahtob; and
Soapdish, a comedy in which she played a pampered soap-opera star and was joined by a cast that included
Kevin Kline,
Whoopi Goldberg,
Cathy Moriarty,
Elisabeth Shue, and
Robert Downey Jr. In 1996, Field reprised her role as Sassy in
Homeward Bound 2: Lost in San Francisco and later that year, she received the
Berlinale Camera award at the
46th Berlin International Film Festival for her role as a grieving vigilante mother in director
John Schlesinger's film
Eye for an Eye. In 1997, Field guest starred on the
King of the Hill episode "Hilloween", in which she voiced religious woman Junie Harper, who contends with
Hank Hill (
Mike Judge) to ban Halloween. She co-starred with
Natalie Portman in
Where the Heart Is (2000), and appeared opposite
Reese Witherspoon in
Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde. Field had a recurring role on
ER in the 2000–2001 season as Dr.
Abby Lockhart's mother, Maggie, who has
bipolar disorder, a role for which she won an
Emmy Award in 2001. After her critically acclaimed stint on the show, she returned to the role in 2003 and 2006. She also starred in the 2002 series
The Court. Field's directorial career began with the television film
The Christmas Tree (1996). In 1998, she directed the episode "The Original Wives' Club" of the critically acclaimed TV miniseries
From the Earth to the Moon, also playing a minor role as Trudy, the wife of astronaut
Gordon Cooper. In 2000, she directed the feature film
Beautiful. Field was a late addition to the
ABC drama
Brothers & Sisters, which debuted in September 2006. In the show's pilot, the role of matriarch Nora Walker was played by
Betty Buckley. However, the show's producers decided to take the character in another direction, and offered the part to Field, who won the
2007 Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her performance. The drama also starred
Calista Flockhart and
Rachel Griffiths as Nora's adult daughters. In January 2015, it was announced that she would co-host
TCM. The same year, Field portrayed the titular character in
Hello, My Name Is Doris, for which she was nominated for the
Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress in a Comedy. In 2017, Field reprised her role as Amanda Wingfield in
The Glass Menagerie on
Broadway at the
Belasco Theatre. Performances began on February 7, 2017, in previews, and officially opened on March 9. The production closed on May 21, 2017, after 85 performance and 31 previews. Field had previously played the role in the
Kennedy Center production in 2004. She was nominated for a
Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance. Her memoir,
In Pieces, was published by
Grand Central Publishing in September 2018. Field returned to episodic television in 2018, starring in the
Netflix miniseries
Maniac. Subsequently, in 2020, Field starred in the
AMC series
Dispatches from Elsewhere. In 2023, Field co-starred in the comedy movie
80 for Brady, which starred
NFL quarterback
Tom Brady along with fellow actresses
Jane Fonda,
Lily Tomlin and
Rita Moreno. Also in 2023, Field was named the 58th recipient of the
Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, which she was presented at the
29th Screen Actors Guild Awards. ==Personal life==