Playboy Interview: Sally Field

To be a successful actress, it's said, you need drive, tenacity, talent and resilience in the face of rejection. It also doesn't hurt to have good looks. But if you're just kind of cute, and you haven't gone to drama school, and you did your growing up as a teen sweetheart on TV and then went from that to an even more preposterous role--a nun who flies--well, the odds of your someday being considered among the greatest actresses are pretty slim.

Considered from that perspective, Sally Field's achievement becomes all the more remarkable. The kind of leap she made--from Gidget to Norma Rae--is so rare that it's difficult to come up with a male equivalent. Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman all were Method actors with serious beginnings. Among today's world-class actresses--Jane Fonda, Meryl Streep, Jessica Lange, Kathleen Turner, Debra Winger--some had to live down joke movies (Fonda's "Barbarella," Lange's "King Kong"), but none an entire TV career. That Field was able to do so, and win two Academy Awards in the process, is a testament to her skills and determination; that she also managed to transform her image from a sugary teenager to a sexy, earthy woman having a public fling with Burt Reynolds is a testament to her style. Although Field would be the last to understand why, she was named one of the nation's ten most respected people in a poll conducted recently by U.S. News & World Report.

As a little girl growing up in Pasadena, California, Sally was a model of the ordinary kid. After graduating from high school, she attended an acting class on the Columbia Studios lot, where she was--as they say--discovered. That discovery led to a TV series called "Gidget"--about the adventures of a teenaged girl with teenage problems, living alone with her father. Field was paid $500 per episode for the year it ran. After "Gidget," however, she once again touched down in the real world, confused and bewildered.

She had married a childhood friend, Steve Craig, and had achieved fame at an early age, but she felt lost. It was almost as if the quiet and timid Sally from her childhood had begun to re-emerge. She simultaneously began to lose confidence and gain weight and even after landing a small part in the film "The Way West," found no respite from her increasing self-doubt.

The next TV series that came along was based on the premise that a cute nun living in Puerto Rico could tilt her wimple into the wind and actually fly. Despite its absurdity, Field made the title character of "The Flying Nun" appealing enough for the show itself to fly and, once again, she found herself in a hit series. She says today that she was tremendously unhappy with the role; but when the show ended, she found herself accepting yet another situation-comedy slot--as a character with extrasensory perception in a show called "The Girl with Something Extra."

Field tried fruitlessly to read for movie roles, but no producer would give her the opportunity. Even her agent--often an actor's most loyal and blindly optimistic fan--tried to discourage her. That's when Sally Field started to get mad.

She fired her agent, divorced her husband, took her two small boys and moved out. She did not look back.

On a bluff, she managed to wangle an audition for Bob Rafelson's "Stay Hungry" and strutted out with the part she wanted: that of a cock-teasing tart. She played it, to everyone's surprise, then went to another audition, this one for the title role of a four-hour television movie based on the true story of a young girl with multiple personalities. Again, Sally had to fight for the audition and, again, she copped the part. And when it appeared in 1976, "Sybil" astonished its TV audience and earned Field an Emmy.

There was still a problem, however: Although producers and directors now knew she could act, her looks were...unusual. Not exactly your average beauty queen. That's when she received a call from an actor she had never met--an actor named Burt Reynolds. He had a project called "Smokey and the Bandit" and wanted Sally to play his girlfriend. She said yes and not only wound up as Reynolds' romantic interest in the film but landed a five-year run as his real-life leading lady as well.

Sally Field had finally arrived. On the arm of one of Hollywood's most eligible bachelors, she cranked out "Heroes" with Henry Winkler, and "The End," again with Reynolds. And in 1980, Field stepped up to the podium to receive an Oscar for best actress as the union organizer in "Norma Rae" and permanently logged herself into the Hollywood history books.

For a while, things were perfect. Almost too perfect. Something had to give--and eventually it did. Field's life with Reynolds did not turn out as happily ever after as most gossip fans had hoped, and the relationship began to disintegrate. She then chose as her next movie "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure." She broke up with Reynolds and once again sorted her life out.

Her good sense about scripts returned to her and she did "Absence of Malice," with Paul Newman. She then did "Back Roads," with Tommy Lee Jones, and "Kiss Me Goodbye," with Jeff Bridges and James Caan. Then came the role of her lifetime: Edna Spalding in "Places in the Heart," for which she won another Oscar. At that Academy Awards ceremony, she stood before the starstudded audience--not to mention the world--and tearfully acknowledged the public's acceptance of her. "You really like me!" she sobbed.

It was perhaps her strangest performance. Here was a tremendously talented actress--an Emmy and an Oscar already on her mantelpiece--stepping up to accept her second Academy Award, and what rushed out were her innermost doubts and insecurities. She wept openly.

Field was remarried in December 1984, to producer Alan Greisman ("Heart Beat," "Modern Problems," "Fletch") and has now decided to produce, her first effort being the newly released "Murphy's Romance," in which she co-stars with James Garner. A true power in Hollywood at the age of 39, she has recently become deeply involved in the antinuclear movement and has a future project in which she plans to portray antinuclear activist Dr. Helen Caldicott.

We sent Contributing Editor Lawrence Grobel (whose last "Playboy Interviews" were with John Huston and Goldie Hawn) to discover the many sides of this complex actress. His report:

"Our first session took place at Sally's new home on a cul-de-sac street in Brentwood. Inside, workers were still getting her study in order, and outside, a gardener raked leaves off the tiled patio. When I suggested that raking the tiles might scratch them, Sally responded, 'Maybe he doesn't have a broom with him.' Then she looked at me and shrugged. 'I can't take control. I'll come out and sweep later.' I had to smile. Here was a woman who had fought and scratched her way to the very top of Hollywood's hierarchy and she felt she could not prevent her gardener from scratching her new patio.

"Over the course of the talks--which spanned two weeks--Sally was very open, saying she felt a responsibility to tell the truth, however hurtful, in this interview. When it was over, we embraced, and I said that I felt it must have been a kind of therapy for her. That's when she revealed that our conversations had given her nightmares. 'I started to have an image of myself that I hadn't had in a long time,' she said. 'I don't know that I've ever followed myself down the whole line.'

"What follows is the picture Sally paints of herself. As I left, I offhandedly asked if she felt that she'd been taken advantage of during most of her life. 'I don't think so,' she said. 'I mean, there were some schmucks along the way'--she paused, then smiled--'and I'll get them.' Then she laughed. It was a healthy laugh. But I had no doubt that a couple of schmucks from Sally Field's life had better watch out."

[Q] Playboy: You'll be on the cover of the issue in which this interview appears; how do you feel about that?

[A] Field: Terrified--that my thighs won't be thin enough, that I won't look good.

[Q] Playboy: You've had pictures taken for the covers of women's magazines; what's so terrifying about Playboy?

[A] Field: I don't get to dress up like a hooker for Ladies' Home Journal. [Laughs] Or whatever you guys think up for me--though there's nothing wrong with hookers or dressing up like one. That's the fun thing about being a woman--dress-up. What's a guy going to dress up as? A fireman? A cowboy?

[Q] Playboy: Does it make you feel sexy?

[A] Field: Well, I was raised to think that a certain kind of woman was sexy and any other kind was not. It took me a long time to understand that my sense of myself is sexy and that it doesn't have to be like Jessica Lange's. When she comes into a room, the first thing you say is, "Whoa! This is a sexy lady!" Jessica is the kind of woman who used to make me feel how unsexy I was. It took me a long time not to be intimidated by her kind of sexuality.

[Q] Playboy: Does your approaching 40th birthday lessen or heighten that anxiety?

[A] Field: The other day, I was having my first blues about being close to 40, depressed by an awareness that I'm never going to be 22 again. Of course, I never had the body of a 22-year-old when I was 22! I can no longer dream that if I work real hard, I, too, can look like Bo Derek or whoever it is who looks really great right now--Kelly Le-Brock--these gorgeous creatures. I can't compete on that sort of girl level with other women.

[Q] Playboy: What do you think of your looks today?

[A] Field: My looks? Sort of clean. [Laughs] Certainly not really beautiful. Not ugly.... Could be ugly. Could definitely be ugly at the drop of a hat. But, no, sort of pleasant and bright.

[Q] Playboy: And if we asked you to describe yourself emotionally?

[A] Field: Oh...I'm relentless and demanding, very emotionally demanding. I'm impatient. I'm sensitive. [Pauses] The good things don't seem to be coming readily to mind. Sometimes, I find, I haven't really liked myself. For much of my life, I felt that my nicest qualities were the ones that weakened me.

[Q] Playboy: Has your self-image changed over the years?

[A] Field: My self-image changes every six months! And not necessarily for the better. But I've always had this tiny nugget inside that knew I could act. That always stayed the same. I just didn't want to take a very good look at it, for fear that it wouldn't be as big as I thought, or it might crumble.

[Q] Playboy: After the ups and downs of your career and the ups and downs of your romantic life, aren't things a little calmer for you just now?

[A] Field: Yes. Professionally, things are terrific. And, personally, I'm in a very happy, productive and exciting place right now, in a relationship with a man who makes me feel good about myself and the "us" that we're creating.

[Q] Playboy: You had a widely publicized affair with Burt Reynolds for five years but ended up marrying producer Alan Greisman. Didn't you once say you felt that once you become lovers, the relationship is almost over?

[A] Field: I certainly did at one point in my life, because I never saw a relationship with any longevity that wasn't horrible. In that area, there's so much that I have never felt or known about myself. I know much more about myself as an actor than I do as a partner to a man. I've just started to learn about that. Once you make love with someone and you decide to love him, it's the start of all sorts of things you didn't really know were there--really starting to learn how to make love. Making love with strangers is not making love, because you don't love them. It's called fucking.

[A] I met Alan when he called about a project he wanted to talk to me about. When he came in, I never looked at him at all. It was an absolute business meeting. Then he wrote me a letter about a week later that said he had enjoyed the meeting, and would I like to have lunch or dinner sometime? We went out to dinner and--haven't been separated.

[Q] Playboy: You fell in love over dinner?

[A] Field: I don't know that I've ever really fallen in love with anybody. I've fallen deeply into infatuation, and deeply into like, and fallen deeply into want--whether it was sexual want or my want for someone to be important, or my want that I be important to him. Even my husband, who I'm really having a lovely time with--I don't think I fell in love with him. I am learning now to love him. It was the most adult thing that I think I've ever done. We made a decision to love each other. I've been married almost a year, but I don't count on the fact that it will be there tomorrow. I don't necessarily expect that life is happily ever after.

[Q] Playboy: That's pretty clear-eyed for the girl who was Gidget. Does that attitude come from your marriage to your high school boyfriend, which ended after six years?

[A] Field: I don't know. Steve and I grew up together, and we were little kids. And best, best friends. Those were good years for me, but we were certainly not the right people to stay married to each other. We were never destined to have an adult relationship with each other. It certainly wasn't his fault. And I have two people in my life--my children, Peter and Eli--who wouldn't be there if I hadn't married. They are so much of my life and have given me so much.

[Q] Playboy: Was Steve your first lover?

[A] Field: Yes. I met Steve when I was 14. I must have lost my virginity around 15.

[Q] Playboy: How did you feel the first time?

[A] Field: Terrible, terrible. I never liked it. I always thought sex was a completely useless event, except for having children. I hated it. I just could not get into it. I come from Southern women who would catch my brother and me in the bathroom, playing "Show me yours, I'll show you mine." They were horrified by it. You know, the rap on the door: "What are you doing in there?"

[Q] Playboy: Are you still guilty about sex?

[A] Field: Oh, I've definitely worked that out. I desperately wanted that side of myself. Beyond the sheer thrill, joy and fun of being able to lose yourself with somebody sexually, there's a part of you that gets cut off--parts of yourself you want to know. You're lonely without those parts, because when they shut the door and everyone leaves the room, you're all alone. Even you aren't there. But I find that as you get older, it becomes more fun, more exciting, because you have more experience with it and you're less frightened.

[Q] Playboy: But it wasn't very exciting for you as a teenager.

[A] Field: I was very awkward at anything that had to do with sexuality. In the summertime, you just went to the beach every day to pick up guys, and it all seemed so mindless to me.

[Q] Playboy: Were you successful at picking up guys?

[A] Field: No, terrible. I never picked up good guys. All my girlfriends did that. I looked much younger than I was; when you're 17, you want to look 22, and I looked 14. We'd go to the beach and my girlfriends would say, "We're going for a walk. You stay here--you look too young." And I hated their guts. I just felt hurt. But I would say, "Fine; that's good." I was a buddy to the boys; I was real tiny. If anybody needed someone to put in a blanket toss, I was the one. They used to like to show their masculinity by seeing how far up in the air they could throw me. That made me angry.

[Q] Playboy: That sounds like a fearful way to grow up.

[A] Field: Oh, yeah. When I was 12, I went through a time where every night I was scared to death. I thought there was somebody outside. I'd hear things. My heart would be beating in my throat. I was paralyzed, I couldn't get up, I couldn't call out; I was afraid someone was coming in the window. Every time I started to fall asleep, I would feel someone just about to put his hand on my neck. I was sure somebody was going to grab me. Sometimes I'd get up enough courage to call out to my mom. But my stepfather at that time didn't want to 'girlify' me. He didn't want little girls to be sissies. He thought the way to handle my fears was to tell me to shut up: "There's nobody there!" So I never did find anybody to help me, to turn on all the lights and make that fear go away.

[Q] Playboy: All of this started earlier, though, when you found out your real father and mother were going to be divorced.

[A] Field: Yes. I remember the alienation of my father and how hurt he was, desperately hurt. I remember such guilt that I felt, that I had to make everybody happy. I remember my father's crying. That was devastating to me. I never really got over that. I was five or six, as high as the flat of the bed. My father was in the divorce house--in his room. He put his face down in his hands--eye level with me--and began to cry because he was about to lose his little baby. I thought it was my fault and if I could be real, real cute and funny, I could make it better. I put my arm up over his shoulder and patted him, telling him he hadn't lost his little baby, I was still there. "You're never going to lose me," I said. It was tough, because I felt that my real loyalties had to be with my mother and brother. And I felt that one wrong move and I would lose that, that he was going to take me and I was going to have to be his little girl and not go where I belonged. That was terrifying. So my love was qualified: "I love you, but...."

[Q] Playboy: Did you ever get to know your father?

[A] Field: I'm hesitant to say this about him for fear he will read it, but we never really had a relationship. I never felt the opportunity to know him. And I don't think I ever really wanted to, because I never stopped feeling I had to take care of him.

[Q] Playboy: When your mother married actor Jock Mahoney, did you gain a father?

[A] Field: My stepfather never became my father. But then, my father never was my father, even though that statement would kill him. I don't know what a father is. [Pauses] I have a hard time doing this--I feel two things. I want to do my job here and be honest with you, but I know these people and I have love for them and don't want to hurt them. So I get torn....

[Q] Playboy: What do you want to say about fathers?

[A] Field: That I had difficult times with my stepfather, that I don't have a relationship with either him or my real father. So whatever happened then stays with me. And because I'm more successful--at least in public terms--than they are, I feel they are waiting for me to make these relationships happen. But I don't feel that way. I still feel like I'm a little kid; let them be the grownups.

[Q] Playboy: How did your mother fit into this?

[A] Field: My mother makes up for every miscommunication that I ever had with my father. She was always my best friend, as corny as that is. She taught me that a woman's charm, a woman's place, is being supportive and quiet. She used to tell me a man will like you if you laugh at his jokes and are interested in what he says; that he doesn't want anything he can get too easily. She was really the one who taught me about acting. She was an actress under contract at Paramount; she had a tremendous love of acting and the classics. Yet she gave up her career for my stepfather, Jocko, who was so big and dashing, who never wanted to be an actor, just a celebrity, a star. He wore fringe and moccasins, strutted, had horses. And he threw you up into the air, which I really hated. My sister, brother and I were his little tribe, like little worshipers. Literally, he'd hold up hoops and we would jump through them into pools. I wanted to please him so desperately; but, at that time, you didn't reveal yourself to your children, and as we got older and more rebellious in our teenage years, he had a hard time letting us go. I think it really broke his heart.

[Q] Playboy: How did you rebel?

[A] Field: I wore make-up, mascara or lipstick. I wasn't allowed to wear lipstick until I was five feet tall, which didn't happen until last year. [Laughs] The first time I had a guy over to the house for dinner--it was in the eighth grade--I had forgotten to wipe my mascara off. And Jocko got a washcloth and washed my face at the table in front of the guy.

[A] There were times when we fought with each other over everything. I would stand on the coffee table and scream at him. I would go apeshit. I changed from a sweet, helpless being into Godzilla when I was 15, 16. I was so frightened of him that the only way to get to myself at all was to be louder than he was, bigger than he was. There was no in-between. Either I was completely helpless, a baby, or I was up on the table, a screaming meemie, absolute spitting, red in the face, cannot be contained. He scared me a lot of times. Threw me across the yard, something humiliating. I was always aware of my lack of size and my powerless position, because I could be in a heavy-duty argument and then find myself flying across the back yard. I know I would have given anything had I been able to pick him up and throw him across the yard.

[Q] Playboy: It's easy to see why you were ready to unleash your energies by the time you went into TV. How did you stumble into Gidget at such an early age, though?

[A] Field: It was 1964 and I was going to go to a junior college, because my grades were so awful that I had to go to night school to get out of high school. I couldn't go away to some fabulous college and become Katharine Hepburn. I needed something to do in the summer, and my stepfather said he knew of this workshop at Columbia Studios. I went and it was awful. We weren't doing Chekhov; we were doing scenes from Dr. Kildare. It wasn't about acting. But the second night I was there, the casting director from Screen Gems asked me if I wanted to audition. I said, "Sure," in my Minnie Mouse voice. Jocko went with me. It felt like my first date, with my father standing on the porch with a shotgun. I walked onto the set and said, "Which one's the camera?" I was fearless. But I did all right. At 17, I had my own television series. Welcome to the world, you know? Hello.

[A] I spent that whole year of Gidget on such a high, I was so excited, it was like Christmas every single day. And I really was like Gidget in a lot of ways. I felt so stupid, it was painful to be embarrassed all the time. I was so unsophisticated: I'd never been out of California or on an airplane. Somewhere along the line, I had decided that I was cute but not real bright. I couldn't remember how to say the simplest words, like mundane or symbiotic. Everyone would sit around at the readings and laugh at me.

[Q] Playboy: Do memories of the show embarrass you today?

[A] Field: I don't know.... There's something universal about Gidget. It's now like cult stuff. Many kids today say it's a real cool thing, it's in. And they all use the language: "What's up, Gidge?" It's like a new thing again.

[Q] Playboy: After Gidget was canceled, you made your first film, The Way West, with Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas. What do you remember about that?

[A] Field: That I gained 15 pounds in two days. I couldn't stop eating. I had always been this tiny little thing; I had never been a porko. And into my life came a lot of trouble that was going to follow me around for the next ten years, a lot of eating disorders and confusion and loneliness, feeling trapped behind my own face.

[Q] Playboy: After that, you returned to the tube to do The Flying Nun. How did you ever get talked into that?

[A] Field:Gidget had become popular over the summer and ABC realized they'd made a mistake canceling it, but at that time, they didn't bring shows back on, so they said, "Create another show for Sally Field." They came up with the Nun and I said no. They had the script written; I said no. They had it rewritten, they kept coming back, I kept turning it down and they finally started filming with somebody else. Then the studio called my stepfather to try to talk to me. He said to me, "You know, you may never work again." His actual words. So I called the producer up that day, frightened. I was succumbing to a sort of ugly, base fear. I said I would do it. And from day one, I always felt that I had sold something of myself.

[Q] Playboy: Once you started, how was it?

[A] Field: I was bored, bored, bored, bored. I had disconnected myself from all my hopes and dreams, from my lust for acting that I had had in junior high and high school. I just was numb. I would do tricks with myself that ultimately turned out to be very productive for me. I was being led by some instinct for survival. For instance, I wouldn't read the script and I would go onto the set and memorize it instantly and I would see if I could do it in one take. It gave me some sort of life, because there was nothing for me to play.

[A] In Gidget, I had had things to play, scenes with fathers and people; here I had nothing. Just complete silliness--someone got into the convent who shouldn't have and we'd have to hide him.... There were no life problems going on, nothing I could relate to. It made no sense to me. I started refusing press interviews and getting a bad reputation. But I couldn't lie. I couldn't go and hype the show, saying, "I'm having such a good time" when I wanted to say, "Let me out of here!"

[A] Flying Nun was a one-joke show, and I don't know why it was successful. The first year, all the stand-up comics, like Bob Hope, had jokes about it--all the nun jokes in the world became The Flying Nun jokes. And I was unable to find any sense of humor inside me. It had all left. I took myself so seriously, felt so wounded. I couldn't detach myself from it. I was 19, 20 years old, and it hurt my feelings.

[Q] Playboy: Can you laugh today at the jokes? There's one we heard not so long ago: "What do you get when you cross a Smurf with Sally Field?" Do you know that one?

[A] Field: No.

[Q] Playboy: Blue Nun.

[A] Field: Oh, really? Is that a joke now? [Manages to almost laugh] They're still doing it. We're talking almost 20 years later. Can you imagine what it was then?

[Q] Playboy: But you can still bring that out in people, can't you? When you won your second Oscar, for Places in the Heart, you burst out, "This means you really like me!" Some people were touched by it; but for others, such as Joan Rivers, it was like turning on a joke tap.

[A] Field: [Quietly] I knew I was providing a lot of people with a lot of material, which is nothing new, considering my career. What Joan does is not without malice. She's very funny, but I feel guilty for laughing when she's saying things about people. If I were Elizabeth Taylor, it would fucking hurt my feelings. I mean, she's talking about my face, my thoughts, my words. She's not even talking about my work. There's a certain meanness to that.

[Q] Playboy: So we won't expect you to appear with Rivers on The Tonight Show.

[A] Field: Never, never, no way. I've had my years of being tortured and humiliated, thank you. I don't need to ask for it.

[Q] Playboy: How do you now feel about that Oscar acceptance speech? Would you tone it down if you had to do it again?

[A] Field: I'm glad I did what I did. I remember sitting and watching the Academy Awards as a kid; it was a big event. When Deborah Kerr won, it meant something to her. And part of the joy of watching it was that you got to see these people speaking to their peers about a business that's tough, that's competitive, that's mean, that's grueling and that's delightful. And they cried or laughed or fell down. When I won my first one [for Norma Rae], I was so contained, I never allowed myself to feel it. I was numb. All I could think of was, Don't fall down, because I didn't have any underwear on. I felt I denied myself that moment, which was foolish of me. This is my moment. These things are few and far between, and you're a goddamn fool if you don't award yourself with them. Because if you don't, the negative of the business will beat you to a pulp. If you don't take the good and eat it, fall face first into it, then you're a fucking jerk. And I'd been one. God, my career....

[A] So I walked up there thinking, Shit, I've got 30 seconds, and Places in the Heart was such an emotional experience for me. So I said to myself, "Don't sell yourself away. Get to what you really feel and fuck 'em!" Because the people I was talking to were those who actually had taken a pencil and put an X on the ballot next to my name. And I had to tell them how much that meant to me. [Emotional now, she begins to cry] It meant a lot. And it makes me cry. So I said it. My deepest, truest feelings were how thrilled I was that whatever course my life had taken, that however hard I tried to deny it, right this minute...you liked me! And I'm glad I did it.

[Q] Playboy: Do you have any doubts now about being liked?

[A] Field: Even now I can think, Will you still love me tomorrow? Will I fade out? Will I matter tomorrow?

[Q] Playboy: [After a break] You were talking about your feelings around the time The Flying Nun became popular.

[A] Field: Yes. I remember Jackie Cooper called me into his office--he was the head of Screen Gems at the time--and the Nun was a smash hit, one of the top shows, but I was so miserable and confused. He was worried about me. It was when the Monkees were popular and drugs were really in; everybody was taking acid, and the studio was afraid that I was going to turn into one of these freaks and screw up the show--which was the farthest thing from the truth. I was always desperately frightened of drugs, because I felt like I was in a drugged state that I couldn't get out of anyway. Drugs meant a chance that I might have to get to my sexuality, so that was completely out of the picture.

[A] So, anyway, Mr. Cooper asked me what I wanted. I said, "Better scripts." He said, "You want a down payment on a boat? A house? A car?" I said, off the top of my head, "How about a Ferrari?" Just being a completely cocky little shit. I didn't even know what a Ferrari was--a car or an airplane. The next day, we went to Beverly Hills and he picked out this blue Ferrari. I had it for three years, barely knew how to drive the sucker. It was horrible, because I was scared to death of it; the car overheated on the freeway all the time.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't you also get pregnant during The Flying Nun?

[A] Field: Another mindless act. I didn't even sit and talk with my husband about it. He must have wondered why, when all of a sudden I was willing to do it. I became pregnant with Peter the last year of the Nun. There was this wonderfully expanding--literally--time in my life and I was dressed up in a nun's habit. My belt kept widening. I had to carry books in front of myself, a sort of humiliation trying to hide the fact. I wasn't even an actress dressed in normal clothes, I was a nun. A pregnant nun!

[Q] Playboy: What finally happened to turn your professional life around?

[A] Field: Madeleine Sherwood took me to the Actors Studio. It changed my life. I found a place where I could go and create. All the transplants from New York were out here--Ellen Burstyn, Jack Nicholson, Sally Kellerman, Bruce Dern--and Lee Strasberg was there for six months out of the year. Little by little, I gained a reputation, sort of underground via the Actors Studio. But I was doing facile work, a lot of histrionics. I felt very cocky. Once, I was doing some fancy footwork with another actress, being unpredictable, performing for the other actors--which you absolutely do not do. Lee, who had been excruciatingly helpful to me, came up to me and said, "When are you going to stop this fucking shit?"

[A] The blood ran out of my face. I went, "What?" He said, "This drivel, this shit." I began screaming at him, "Who the fuck do you think you are?" I was screaming, crying; my nose was running all over the place. I went on, hysterical and defensive--I was hiccuping and wiping my nose with my hand--and finally he said, "Listen to me. This is where you want to be, where you have been unable to go. It's the difference between acting and being. You already can act; what you want to do is be. That's what you've been too fucking cowardly to do."

[Q] Playboy: Not to be an armchair shrink, but did it seem to you that Strasberg had become your stepfather? Were you back up on that table, screaming?

[A] Field: At that moment, that's exactly what happened. And Lee was absolutely right.

[Q] Playboy: But it still took you a long time to get out of TV and get taken seriously by the movie studios, didn't it?

[A] Field: I couldn't get in anyone's door. TV was a poor man's game at the time, and movie people looked down their noses at TV people. It was before Barbra Streisand had even come on the scene; there were no films about women. It finally reached a point where I got angry. I went to my business manager and my agent at the time, saying, "I'm not going to do TV anymore." My agent said, "You aren't good enough." I said, "You're fired."

[A] I sold my house, left my husband and just studied. I had no pride. I'd do a scene in a hallway. Finally, a casting lady called me to meet Bob Rafelson for a film, which was Stay Hungry. I asked what kind of role it was and they said it was a really sexy, flirty kind of girl. Well, Jesus Christ, that couldn't have been less my territory. But I went into the office and I ...was this tart. If I sat in a chair that had arms, I put one leg on one side and one on the other--I'm talking a girl heavily into tart [laughs]. I'm not sure what I did in the room. I was in another zone altogether. I left Sally Field somewhere in the dust and there was this hungry spirit, this complete tart in the room. If they'd harnessed me, I could have lit up all of Chicago. I would never have the guts to do anything like that today.

[Q] Playboy: Is it true that Rafelson didn't want to test you and you said to tell him you were the best lay in L.A.?

[A] Field: I don't think I said best lay. I said, "I'm the best fuck in town." I was acting like I was this girl who'd really been around and knew the ropes. But Stay Hungry was the crack in the door.

[Q] Playboy: Which you burst open with your next performance, in the title role of Sybil, about a girl with multiple personalities. How did you land that one?

[A] Field: I got to see the script for Sybil and realized that my Stay Hungry character was about as much like Sybil as Margaret Thatcher, but I was allowed to read for the part anyway. And I went in and was Sybil. Joanne Woodward, who played my mother, was wonderful to work with. For that role, there wasn't any amount of energy that was too much. All the anger and frustration in me was released. It was tremendously grueling, and it was what Lee had told me to do--I didn't act a single moment in that film. Every second of that four hours, I had to be. It was real gutter kind of work, real vomit on the floor, and I didn't analyze it too much. I totally forgot about being attractive. I created this one character, the nine-year-old Peggy personality, who was real angry, animallike. Peggy had a real crouched-down walk, clenched fists; you weren't sure if she was going to bite you or butt you with her head.

[Q] Playboy: You received an Emmy for Sybil but didn't show up at the ceremony. Why?

[A] Field: I was newly with Mr. Reynolds. We were up in Santa Barbara, filming The End, which Burt was directing, and he needed my support. I was chief chef and bottle washer. And that was important to me. I wanted to make this relationship work; he needed me to care for him. He didn't feel I should go to the Emmys. I remember sitting in this condominium, watching it by myself. Burt wasn't feeling well and had gone to sleep. When I won, I felt, You schmuck, why weren't you down there? Typical Field move. I allowed other people to lead me. I was so dependent on other people.

[Q] Playboy: What was Reynolds' reaction when you won?

[A] Field: It wasn't really very important to him. He was busy directing a film; mine was a TV movie.

[Q] Playboy: You've said your years with Reynolds changed you. How did you meet?

[A] Field: It was when I was completely Sybiled out. I got a call saying that Burt Reynolds wanted me to do a movie with him. Talk about left field! The movie was supposed to be called Smokey and the Bandit, and there was no script; it seemed terrible. I said, "No, you've got to be kidding; I'm a serious actress now. I'm going to do Macbeth next and on to Medea." But then I started hearing reactions to Sybil: that I wasn't pretty enough, that I was this short little Munchkin. Burt was a macho movie star, very attractive, so I thought, Even if the film doesn't work, if he thinks I'm attractive in it, other people will think so, too. And I did it calculatedly, for that reason only.

[Q] Playboy: Did you have any idea how successful it would become?

[A] Field: Absolutely no idea. We made the script up as we went along. We'd be driving in the car and I'd say, "If I put my feet up here on the dash, I could tap-dance," and he'd say, "That's good, OK."

[Q] Playboy: Along with changing the way people thought of your looks, that movie gave you a reputation for having a fast, dirty mouth, didn't it?

[A] Field: I was just so tired of feeling so fucking vulnerable, so small-townish, embarrassed by dirty jokes. I was this little girl in a car with a movie star; I started writing stuff in my journal to talk myself out of being scared. I've kept a journal since I was 13--I write poetry, draw pictures. Well, if you look back, you can tell what mood I was in during that movie by what I wrote: fuck, shit, just dirty words all over the page. I also wrote to myself, "You're a good actress; who the hell is he"? Since I felt like the perpetual Bambi, I just went completely the other way and pretended I was Joan Collins--everything was "motherfucker," and I split words in the middle, saying "senfuckingsational." And I pretended I'd been into the drug scene and had slept around. The only time I wasn't scared was when the cameras started rolling; then I knew I was home.

[Q] Playboy: And how did Burt take to your behavior?

[A] Field: He was aghast, chagrined, because he's a Southern gentleman, a real barefoot boy. He came from an era when women were one way and men another and never the twain shall meet. Well, they meet only one way. If you're going to be linked with him, then you have to fit his idea of what's proper. My mentality was, I'm going to do it to you before you do it to me. I found out I really liked swearing.

[Q] Playboy: Were you surprised he took an interest in you?

[A] Field: I was startled; it caught me very much off guard. Burt was the most important influence that came into my life other than my children at that time. He changed me all around. I spent five years being around a major movie star, and I learned a lot. He gave me a feeling that I was attractive, sexy. It pleased me to dress for him. I like doing that. I like being exhibited by a man in some ways, like an object. I wanted to be the perfect person I never could be before. I wanted to be everything he ever wanted. That was terrible, because what happened is that I stopped existing. I dressed for him, looked for him, walked for him.

[Q] Playboy: Were you also jealous when other women came on to him?

[A] Field: Hah! I was trying so hard the first three years to allow him some space, to let him do what he needed to do--with me still there. He had an image to perpetuate, and I respected it. But the other side was the savage being that so much of my passion was locked up in. I am a jealous human being to my core. I am crazed.

[Q] Playboy: Did he walk out on you at the end? Were you the victim of that relationship?

[A] Field: No, I was not the victim. I came up to the surface, is what I did. I got mad. And all the colors that I try to hide from all these guys--these fathers and men--finally came out. I mean, it was Sybil. [In the voice of the enraged nine-year-old Peggy of that movie, shouting] "This won't do, that won't do, I don't like it!"

[Q] Playboy: What was Burt's reaction?

[A] Field: He said, "Who is this? I don't know you." He felt betrayed. This person he'd come to depend on, who was patient and kind, baked pies and made brownies and rubbed his feet and ran home to feed her kids, then ran back to feed him and never asked for any space and lived in her car and never asked for a coat hanger! All of a sudden, I went, "What the fuck is going on? I am a human and these are my needs and how do they fit in with yours?"

[A] But in truth...it wasn't fair of me, because I had never professed to need anything. What I was saying was, "I'm better than you are, because you need and I don't." Ultimately, the person who asked for it went away feeling useless, because I never said, "Would you rub my back? I need your hands, your strength." I chose to do that. And I left.

[Q] Playboy: Did you ever discuss marriage?

[A] Field: I've never really talked about all of this...I know I shouldn't. But...yes, he asked me to marry him many times at the end. Begged me: "Please, let's try it." But I didn't want to. I knew that his heart wasn't in it. He wanted the girl back he had had before, but I was never going to be that way again. We'd have ended up just feeling terrible.

[Q] Playboy: Have you remained friendly?

[A] Field: Oh, no, we didn't part close friends. We're still not. I am, unfortunately, an all-or-nothing-at-all kind of person.

[Q] Playboy: Did you ever hear from him when you got married?

[A] Field: No. I wrote him a letter, telling him, before the press heard. I didn't know whether or not he cared to hear that.

[Q] Playboy: What about those rumors he had to deny about having AIDS?

[A] Field: I wouldn't have any way of knowing one way or another. I'm sure it's not true. There's always been something going on around him. But he's had health problems ever since I've known him.

[Q] Playboy: How do you assess Reynolds as an actor?

[A] Field: It's not fair to say anything that could be conceived of as negative when he's not in a good place right now. Burt has a quality that nobody else has. He's funny, sexy, glib, likable and still very macho. But Burt tries to be all things to all people, and he pushes himself some places he shouldn't. He thinks that unless he's doing the kind of work that, say, [Al] Pacino or [Robert] De Niro does--intense, dramatic work--then he's not an actor. But I don't think he's comfortable with that kind of intense emotional revealing. He doesn't like to reveal himself that way in life, yet he's mad at himself because he can't do that on the screen.

[A] There is value in doing what Burt does and not doing anything else. You don't have to do "issue" pictures to be worth while. Entertainment is one of the great values of mankind. What Clint Eastwood does is to entertain people, and very artistically. He doesn't seem mad at himself for not doing Richard III. Burt always felt that it wasn't enough to entertain. But nobody does it all--except, maybe, Dustin Hoffman. But Dustin has a trade-off, too, because Dustin doesn't have Burt's looks.

[Q] Playboy: Would you like to work with Hoffman one day?

[A] Field: Definitely. Hoffman has always been very sexy to me, because he's so bloody talented. And that kind of talent, that kind of energy, that sort of burning inside is hot. That's exciting.

[Q] Playboy: Does any other actor make you feel that way?

[A] Field: Nicholson is the same way; he has a different kind of aura, he's unpredictable and he has a certain burning inside. And Brando, of course.

[Q] Playboy: You starred with Paul Newman in Absence of Malice. How was he to work with?

[A] Field: He's so easy that you keep thinking he's not doing anything. You know, "When is this guy going to act?" He's funny in that he's so unfunny. [Laughs] He tells the worst jokes known to man and he loves it. He'll stop a set cold for 45 minutes when you're late, trying to get done for the day, to tell the worst shaggy-dog story.

[Q] Playboy: How about John Malkovich, with whom you worked in Places in the Heart?

(continued on page 116)Sally Field(continued from page 57)

[A] Field: He's a complete lunatic. [Laughs] A very strange fellow--but, again, so lovable that I felt a great comfort in being with him. His humor is so off the wall that you think maybe he's lost it altogether. He faces his work in such a free way; I've never seen anybody else work like that. He doesn't prepare it, he just does it.

[Q] Playboy: And your Back Roads co-star, Tommy Lee Jones?

[A] Field: A very troubled person. We didn't have a very good time. We almost got into a fistfight. He behaved very badly.

[Q] Playboy: How badly?

[A] Field: I will overlook and overlook, then push me too far and I say, "Good night." I got tired of being bullied. It wasn't like he was an actor lost in his role; it was just some guy who didn't have it together.

[Q] Playboy: Was he drinking?

[A] Field: I think so. And God knows what else. I don't want to bad-mouth the guy; this was a long time ago, and maybe he's gotten better.

[Q] Playboy: Did he get physical with you?

[A] Field: Once. He was trying to show me how I couldn't get away if he didn't want me to. I have really tiny bones, and he had a grip on my wrist like he was gonna twist it off. He made my friend [director] Marty [Ritt] ill, which pissed me off. He was so relentless about showing me and Marty that we couldn't do this scene that I just sank my teeth into his hand. [Laughs] I got away. But then he ran after me and said he was going to disfigure my face. He was a bad guy as far as I'm concerned.

[Q] Playboy: We've covered some of the male actors you've worked with; how about the women who are your peers? Whom do you consider at the top of your profession?

[A] Field: As far as getting the plum roles, Meryl [Streep] wears the crown. She's held up to be the quintessential actress of our generation--maybe because she's in the New York scene, which is very important right now as far as motion pictures are concerned. I will never be Meryl, who's done nothing but quality. That will never be. It was not written in the cards. She's extraordinary. But there are several other extraordinary actresses. Sissy Spacek is wonderful; Jane Fonda is fabulous; Jessica Lange's work is very interesting.

[Q] Playboy: And Goldie Hawn?

[A] Field: Goldie does something that none of the other actresses can do. She has a whimsy and a comedic ability that no one else has. We can all imitate her, but we can't get near it. I don't think that Goldie has yet branched out as much as she would like to dramatically, because she's such big box office doing what she does.

[Q] Playboy: Do you consider any of the women we've discussed friends?

[A] Field: I really have not known a lot of people in the business. There's something about me that's so reclusive, I'm always fighting that urge to just go home and take up weaving and never be seen by another human being, just go act and come home and hide. I find it so difficult to allow friends into my life; I don't know why. It's a very big hole in my life. I don't understand this part of me. For years, when I was with shrinks, I used to think that there was something wrong with me because I didn't have friends. And I really don't...and I haven't.

[A] I periodically say I'm going to open up this part of my life and invite these women in--and then I don't. I think of all these reasons to rationalize it. I have two kids, this career; I don't have time. But there are other people who have two kids and careers and they have lots of women friends. And they say, "I couldn't do without my women friends. I couldn't exist without that release." I can't even visualize what that release is about. What release?

[A] In all honesty, which reveals another not-quite-so-attractive part of me, I don't know what good it does, what purpose. I don't understand the process of working to have a friend. If I didn't have my mother and my sister as a vent for any sort of emotional exchange, I would have had to learn how to make friends.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't Jane Fonda once make a friendly overture toward you?

[A] Field: Jane wrote me a letter about Norma Rae. I'd never met her. She wrote, "You make me proud to be in the profession that I'm in. Please let's have lunch and get to know each other." I was overwhelmed. This letter weighed on me for weeks, because I didn't have the guts to call her up. You see, when we're old and gray, Jane Fonda will be a woman of this time. She is tremendously powerful and successful. She's so much more grown-up than I was. I know I make myself sound like this trembling doe-eyed thing. There's a place inside me that's a complete bitch, but we're not talking about that side. Anyway, I finally wrote her a letter and said that her letter meant very much to me, but at this time in my life, I was just too intimidated ever to have lunch with her. [Laughs] I couldn't face it. She laughed about my letter and said, "Whenever you feel you can get to know me...."

[Q] Playboy: And did you?

[A] Field: Yes. I hit a very low spot in my life for about two years. It was after Norma, when Absence of Malice was coming out. I broke down and called Jane and said that I needed to talk to her, and she was great. I remember tears' coming to my eyes several times during the lunch. I had a production company, and I couldn't even figure out whom to get to help me figure out what to do. I'd think, I have to make phone calls. Should I be meeting people? I just said to Jane, "I need to know how you do what you do. I'm completely lost. I don't know what I'm doing or why I'm doing it, and I feel so lonely here. I just want to go home."

[A] So she just talked and talked. She told me about her own insecurities. Jane is unafraid to reveal herself. She's very passionate about things, and she's out there. There are people who are involved in things, but nobody quite like Jane. She was so generous, I felt not so alone.

[Q] Playboy: You became pretty prominent yourself as one of the m.c.s for the Live Aid show, and you've been outspoken against nukes. Do you wonder if that kind of involvement will affect your career?

[A] Field: It's a real juggling act. I feel that people who are well known have a certain responsibility to society to get information out. I know people say, "What gives you, as a stupid actor, the right to get up and say anything?" I don't think it's our responsibility to tell people what to think, but we can say, "Listen to this person who is an authority." The nuclear issue is the one to which I feel most committed. As for the Live Aid concert, there are times when you just feel, Fuck it, do it.

[A] On the other hand, sure, you have to be very careful. Selfishly, I don't want to lose any of my opportunities to act. Acting has to be faceless. You have to be able to wipe the slate clean, and it's difficult carrying a lot of baggage for the audience as you come in. You don't want them to feel they already know you.

[Q] Playboy: You portrayed very different women in Norma Rae and Places in the Heart. How would you describe the differences?

[A] Field: Norma was an angry woman. She was compelled and lived with her anger. It was suppressed a great deal of her life, because she felt helpless and hopeless. But she was furious. Her strength came out of her anger and love for her children. Edna Spalding, in Places, was the opposite. She was not an angry woman. Her whole energy was about love. She was driven to do things outside of herself out of love.

[Q] Playboy: Is it true you broke an actor's rib shooting a scene for Norma Rae?

[A] Field: Yes. It was a scene where I was just supposed to see a police car and they said, "You're going to jail, Norma Rae." And then I get into the car. Well, I asked Marty [Ritt, the director], "Can I do whatever I want?" He said yes. And I went absolutely apeshit. The guys couldn't get me into the car. I'd wriggle away and fall onto the ground. Four guys picked me up, but I was kicking and biting. They would drop me and I'd crawl away and they'd grab me again. I had had no idea that I was going to get that violent. I broke one of the gentlemen's ribs. Another guy had some sort of gift watch for his 20th-year retirement, and I shattered it. I just went crackers.

[Q] Playboy: Marty Ritt has directed you in your current movie, Murphy's Romance. Is this film a departure for both of you?

[A] Field: In a sense. It's a very sweet film, but, boy, it sure isn't action-packed. It's a light, sophisticated comedy about choosing the right person to be in love with. I hope Marty and James Garner get some recognition for it. I would give up a finger if Marty finally got the recognition he deserves.

[Q] Playboy: Have the roles you've played changed you as a person?

[A] Field: Most definitely. Acting is like therapy; it unearths parts of yourself that you were not in touch with, and you change.

[Q] Playboy: What parts of yourself did you unearth in Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, which you did after Norma Rae?

[A] Field: [Laughs] Oddly enough, I did learn from that. I learned that I'd rather starve, have my house taken away, go sell cosmetics--anything would be more dignified than doing that again. I could never work so blatantly for money again.

[Q] Playboy: Was that the reason you did it?

[A] Field: Oh, yeah, I had no money. I got about $75,000. Actually, as far as the experience went, it was a great cast, and we laughed a ton. I literally wet my pants three times on screen. I don't know if people know how funny Peter Boyle and Jack Warden are. Every time we faced some new disaster, they'd be singing, "'Clang, clang, clang' went the trolley." We were supposed to pretend the room was shaking, and director Irwin Allen would sit up on his ladder and shoot off a gun for action, yelling, "Flail, flail, flail!" Well, if you could see these actors, like Michael Caine, Karl Malden, Slim Pickens, Shirley Jones, Shirley Knight, Jack Warden, Peter Boyle, all good actors, flailing, flailing...all muttering things to one another under their breath. I had to fall out of sight because I was laughing so hard.

[Q] Playboy: You said you made Beyond the Poseidon Adventure for $75,000. That's not much by movie standards. What were you paid for Norma Rae?

[A] Field: Fifty thousand. And I was glad to get it, because I had no money at all then. I was scared. I would have done it for nothing.

[Q] Playboy: So, until recently, you've never really made that much money--not even after all those years on TV?

[A] Field: Never. And I have a fear of losing everything I have now. Gidget and the Nun are on TV now and I get nothing, not even a thank-you letter. There was nothing on the back end for me, ever.

[Q] Playboy: And today?

[A] Field: Well, I have two Oscars and an Emmy. If I can't get $2,000,000 now--and I don't--with other salaries what they are.... [Laughs] I mean, what I make is enormous, but as far as the other women who are working are concerned, I'm on the low end of the totem pole.

[Q] Playboy: Surely, though, you must be aware that you're a power in this industry.

[A] Field: There's a side of me that feels it, feels that I have to use it now; that power is so fleeting in this industry. I do have a certain power right now. I must learn how to use it correctly, so that it will open up other things for me inside, creatively.

[Q] Playboy: What have you learned about producing?

[A] Field: That producing is a real craft; it takes a real talent to develop properties for film. And here we are, actors with power to develop our projects, but it doesn't mean that we know how to deal with this. I still don't like being out in the business at all. I don't feel comfortable, and it wears me out to have lunches with people--producers, agents, writers, directors--pretending that I know what I'm talking about when I usually have no idea. I often feel like a stupid idiot.

[Q] Playboy: Is that when you go home and take out your aggression on your dishwasher? We heard that you once destroyed one with a hammer.

[A] Field: Yes, and it was great; I loved every moment of it. I fixed that dishwasher four times, goddamn it. [Laughs] I was just furious at it, so I wrecked it.

[Q] Playboy: How do your children react to your temper tantrums?

[A] Field: They've told me many times when I have a temper tantrum where I just go nuts like that and kick the walls, "Look, we don't like this behavior." Peter told me one time to go to my room. [Laughs]

[Q] Playboy: Did you go to your room?

[A] Field: I did. It scared him and he didn't like it.

[Q] Playboy: Was it difficult when you were single, raising two boys?

[A] Field: I was hell-bent on giving my boys the kind of childhood they would have regardless of a man. But I'm limited by my inability to do any athletics, and I'm frightened of things. I was always looking for places I could take the kids on vacation, but they were always a disaster; we never had any fun. Perfect example: One summer, right before I did Places, The American Sportsman asked me to go to Africa to balloon out of the Ngora Ngora crater. I figured, What the hell; you go up, you come down; it's The Wizard of Oz; what can happen? So I took the boys. It took us three days to drive in. You're in Africa--no roads, no telephones, no water, no electricity. I was glad that I had Kleenex. The first day, there was so much wind that they couldn't get the balloon ignited; and when they did, they said, "Run, dive," and I had to jump into this balloon headfirst. Then we came crashing back down and I realized this wasn't going to be fun. When we finally got up, we started to come down right into the hippo pond. About 45 hippos, and we came right down onto their heads, with their mouths wide-open, and the cameras were filming this. I was going, "Oh, my Christ."

[A] I became an expert balloonist. I was leaning out one side to keep it from falling over. We were now resting on the top of the hippos. Finally, we got enough elevation that we skirted along the top of the water into the reeds. The next day, we went up again; and the minute we did, I knew in my heart that something bad was going to happen, because I couldn't breathe. We came down really, really hard, and both my knees crashed on a steel cylinder. It popped one kneecap in two and the other was all cut up. I started to cry. They didn't have any first aid. That night, we were told not to leave the tents, but I had to pee. I couldn't bend either leg now. I woke the kids and said, "Guys, I have to pee. I don't even care if I get eaten; my having to pee hurts worse than either knee." [Laughs] I realized then as I was crawling around in the bushes seeing the Cape buffalo in the moonlight, not knowing what was going to reach out and bite me in the ass, that women cannot pee without bending either knee while standing up. It's physically impossible. I just had to live with the damage I did to my shoes. And it took us a week to get out of Africa. When I got home, I had to be in a cast for eight and a half weeks.

[Q] Playboy: Despite all that, you managed to bring up your boys without a man around. And you've said your fight was against men--against fathers and demanding men. Now that you've settled down with your husband, how do you feel about men?

[A] Field: Strangely enough, I'd have to say I like men better than women. In the past, I've found I have, despite all, which is probably a sign of my deeply competitive nature with women.

[Q] Playboy: Is there any aspect of your life you would change if you could?

[A] Field: I'd have more really close friends with a long history attached to them. That's what I'd change. It's like my always saying I'm going to learn to play golf, but I never do it. [Brightens up] Someday I'm going to play golf with a lot of friends; that's what I'm going to do!

[Q] Playboy: One last question: Whose "I love you" means the most to you--Alan's? Your kids'? Your mother's?

[A] Field: Actually--what a horrible thing to say, but when you said that, immediately I thought, My own.

"My self-image changes every six months. And not necessarily for the better."

"There's something universal about 'Gidget.' Kids today say it's a cool thing and use the language: 'What's up, Gidge?'"

"My agent said, 'You aren't good enough for movies.' I said, 'You're fired.'"

"I know I shouldn't, but...yes, Burt asked me to marry him many times at the end. Begged me."

"In all honesty, I don't know what good friendship does, what purpose. I don't understand it."