Sally Field Didn’t Speak To Burt Reynolds The Last 30 Years Of His Life

Nov 18, 2021 by apost team

75-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. At one point, the actress was dating fellow star Burt Reynolds, and their relationship was not always what it seemed. 

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.

Sally has been married twice and has three children. In between her two marriages, she was connected with Reynolds, and they were together for about five years. Keep reading to learn why Sally chose not to speak with Reynolds for decades leading up to his death.

Sally 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.

Sally found love again, marrying Alan Greisman in 1984. The couple had a son named Sam together, but unfortunately, their relationship ended in divorce in 1993. 

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."

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.

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After her divorce from Craig, Sally began a relationship with her "Smokey and the Bandit" co-star, Burt Reynolds. While their Hollywood coupling seemed like a perfect match, she said to Good Morning America: "We were sort of, you know, deeply entangled. There was some ingredient between us having to do with my caretaking and him needing to be taken care of."

The star revealed in her memoir titled In Pieces that the relationship was also controlling, writing that:

"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. We were a perfect match of flaws. Blindly I fell into a rut that had long ago formed in my road, a pre-programmed behavior as if in some past I had pledged a soul-binding commitment to this man."

In 2015, Reynolds said to Vanity Fair that Sally was the "love of his life." 

Sally's memoir was released two weeks after Reynold's passing in 2018. The actress opened up about their relationship and admitted she had not spoken to him for a while. In an interview, she said, "Burt was an important person in my life, but for a very short period of time. But nonetheless, he was important."

Sally continued, "I had not spoken to him in a long time, but I had the feeling he was suffering physically. He's such an athletic, physical man that I don't think he liked being sort of impaired. His back was hurting him. His legs were hurting him. He was walking with a cane. Knowing Burt the way I did, he hated that. I guess I just felt that — glad he's not hurting anymore."

What do you think of the complicated relationship between Sally Field and Burt Reynolds? Let us know your opinion, and feel free to send this along to your friends and family.