A Peek At 'Mrs. Doubtfire' Star Sally Field's Love Record

Nov 24, 2020 by apost team

74-year-old Sally Field is a Hollywood legend, having worked in the industry since the early '60s—that's nearly six full decades! And while much of her life's work is cataloged through the various movies and TV shows she's acted in, her love life is just as fascinating but much lesser-known.

Here, we take a look inside Field's romantic interests and personal life over the years.

Although Sally Field is a wonderful actress with a long and successful career in Hollywood, she's actually not the first member of her family to take up the profession. Her mother, Margaret Field was actually an actress too, best known for a couple of early-'50s science fiction films. 

Sally was born on November 6, 1946, in Pasadena, California. Her father served in the military during World War II, but his relationship with Sally's mom didn't last, and after they got divorced in 1950 when Sally was still a child, Margaret married actor and stuntman, Jock Mahoney. You could say that Sally quite literally grew up in Hollywood.

It's maybe not a big surprise then to learn that Sally's career kicked off right after high school when she starred as the titular character in the TV show Gidget, where she played a boy-crazy surfer girl. Although the show wasn't initially successful and only ran for one season, reruns helped it to become a belated success.

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She followed up Gidget with the show The Flying Nun and later Sybil, which earned her an Emmy Award before she made the jump to movies. By the end of the 1970s her movie career had picked up steam and she was known for Smokey and the Bandit, as well as her Academy Award-winning turns in Norma Rae and Places In the Heart. That's a lot of success already, but Sally continued on, memorably gracing our screens in Steel Magnolias, Mrs. Doubtfire, and Forrest Gump. By the 2000s she went back to TV and earned further Emmys for her work in ER and Brothers & Sisters. Sally's work as an actress is the real deal, earning her multiple awards across film and television in multiple decades. But her love life, although less known, is equally as interesting.

Sally first got married to Steven Craig in 1968, and the couple had two sons, Peter and Eli, both of whom followed their mom into show-business, albeit on the writing and directing side of things. But her marriage wasn't meant to last, and in 1975 Sally and Steven called it quits.

A few years after her divorce, Sally began a relationship with her Smokey and the Bandit co-star, heartthrob Burt Reynolds. In fact, the pair starred in a number of movies together around this time. But while their Hollywood coupling seems like a match-made-in-heaven, Sally revealed in her memoir titled In Pieces, that the relationship was controlling, writing that:

“By the time we met, the weight of his stardom had become a way for Burt to control everyone around him..."

She also said their union was a "perfect match of flaws."

A while after her relationship with Burt ended, Sally found love a second time, marrying Alan Greisman in 1984. The couple had a son together named Sam, but unfortunately, their relationship ended in divorce in 1993.

Over the years Sally has been linked to a few male celebrities, including her Gidget co-star Pete Duel while they starred on the show, as well as The Monkees singer Davy Jones sometime in 1968. She even went on a couple of dates with actor Kevin Kline and television host Johnny Carson, but their flings weren't meant to be. Field told People Magazine in 1984:

“I don’t think I was conscious of it, but my vibrations were ‘Just leave me alone.’"

Despite her rich love life over the years, nothing compares to Sally's children and grandchildren. A proud mom to three boys, Sally once told Closer Weekly:

"The three things I’m most proud of in my life are my sons. They are kind, loving, productive people. Each with their own list of talents and accomplishments."

Imagine having Sally Field as your mom! All three of her boys followed her into the film and TV industry, and are accomplished in their own right. What's more, she has five grandchildren too—Isabel, Sophie, Ogden, Noah, and Colin—all of whom are said to frequently visit their grandma in her Pacific Palisades home. In the same interview with Closer Weekly, she described her kids and her grandkids as her whole "existence," adding that:

"I'm not married; I'm not the kind of person that has a life separate from them. That's my family. That's my everything."

At 74, Sally is clearly loving life. With an incredibly successful career that's still active and a lot of family to love, she doesn't seem to be slowing down any time soon.

Did you know about Sally Field's various romances over the years? Or about her beloved sons and grandchildren? Let us know in the comments, then be sure to pass this on to your friends and family!