Sally Field won big at the 52nd Academy Awards in 1980 when she scored her first Oscar for her starring role in Norma Rae.
But the 77-year-old acting legend — who later won a second Academy Award — revealed that her success on the awards circuit became a major point of contention with her then-boyfriend Burt Reynolds.
Field reveals in Dave Karger’s new book 50 Oscar Nights, which hits shelves on January 23, that the Boogie Nights stars — who died in 2018 at 82 — refused to attend the Oscars ceremony with her, and even trie to talk her out of attending other prestigious ceremonies during her Norma Rae publicity campaign.
The actress, who revealed last year that she was almost set on a blind date with Steven Spielberg, painted a portrait of a jealous Reynolds who was ‘not happy’ about the critical acclaim she was receiving for Norma Rae.
‘He really was not a nice guy around me then,’ she said, via People.
Sally Field, 77, says in Dave Karger’s new book 50 Oscar Nights that her then-boyfriend Burt Reynolds refused to attend the 1980 Oscars with her when she was nominated for Norma Rae; seen in 1978
Field ended up winning the Best Actress Oscar that year, but Reynolds skipped out on the show so her friend David Steinberg and his then-wife took her to the ceremony; seen winning her second Oscar in 1985
Ahead of the 1980 Oscars, she said her Smokey And The Bandit costar told her he ‘was not going to go’ with her to the ceremony.
But Reynolds had been telegraphing an alleged lack of support for his then-girlfriend’s most praised performance to date for months.
Norma Rae, which was directed by Martin Ritt, was set to premiere at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival, but Reynolds urged her not to attend the prestigious festival.
‘He did not want me to go to Cannes at all,’ Field told Karger. ‘He said, “You don’t think you’re going to win anything, do you?”‘
Reynolds turned out to be disastrously wrong. The jury at Cannes, which chooses award winners from films in competition without publishing a list of nominees, selected Field as the Best Actress winner at the festival for her performance in Norma Rae.
However, the award didn’t seem to mollify Reynolds at all, and ‘when the Oscars came around, he really was not a nice guy around me then and was not going to go with me,’ Field recalled.
However, she still had some support at the ceremony when the comedian and actor David Steinberg and his then-wife Judy Marcione attended with her.
The Forrest Gump actress admitted that she ‘didn’t know what to do’ about her lack of a date.
Ahead of the 1980 Oscars, she said her Smokey And The Bandit costar told her he ‘was not going to go’ with her to the ceremony; seen in 1977
Reynolds also allegedly urged her to skip the 1979 Cannes Film Festival. He said, “You don’t think you’re going to win anything, do you?”‘; still from Smokey And The Bandit
Field ended up winning the Best Actress prize at the festival. She dated Reynolds from 1976 to 1980, but they then dated on and off until 1982; still from Smokey And The Bandit
‘Then David said, “Well, for God’s sakes, we’ll take you.” He and Judy made it a big celebration,’ she shared. ‘They picked me up in a limousine and had champagne in the car. They made it just wonderful fun.’
Field and Reynolds had struck up a relationship in 1976, when they were shooting the classic comedy Smokey And The Bandit, which was released the following year and became a massive hit and the second highest–grossing film of the year behind Star Wars.
The lovebirds worked together again on the 1978 films The End and Hooper, before shooting their final on-screen collaboration, 1980’s Smokey And The Bandit II.
However, the strain of Reynold’s disdain for Field’s rising career seems to have soured things between the two, and they split later in 1980.
However, it wasn’t completely over for the two, and they continued to date on and off until 1982 before calling it quits for good.
The end of the relationship coincided with the start of a major career downturn for Reynolds, who appeared in a string of flops beginning in the mid-’80s, which didn’t end until he got a chance to show off his acting chops again in 1997’s classic Boogie Nights, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.
The film earned the veteran star his first and only Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for playing a porn director who fails to keep up with the rapidly changing industry as the 1970s end and the 1980s begin.
It offered Reynolds plenty of new roles, but few meaty parts, and he turned down a part in Anderson’s critically acclaimed follow-up film Magnolia.
Reynolds, who died in 2018 at 82, fell into a career slump in the mid-1980s, which was briefly ended with his Oscar-nominated part in 1997’s Boogie Nights. Field went on to have decades of acclaimed performances and hit films; seen in February 2023 in LA
Field would go on to win a second Oscar in 1985 for the previous year’s Places In The Heart, and she later received a supporting actress nomination for playing Mary Todd Lincoln in Steven Spielberg’s 2012 film Lincoln.
In her 2018 memoir In Pieces, Field revealed that she broke off contact with Reynolds a few years after their breakup and didn’t speak to him for the last 30 years of his life.
In the documentary I Am Burt Reynolds, the filmmaker Adam Rifkin — who directed Reynolds in The Last Movie Star — said he quizzed the Cannonball Run star about why he and Field split up.
‘I screwed up,’ he recounted Reynolds telling him. He also claimed that the Deliverance star said he wished he had married Field and started a family with her.
