With two Oscars, three Primetime Emmys, and a career of extraordinary variety and depth to her credit, Sally Field is a veritable American icon. It’s little wonder, then, that she was tapped to receive this year’s SAG Life Achievement Award, joining a prestigious group of past honorees that includes Helen Mirren, Robert De Niro, Carol Burnett, Rita Moreno, Lily Tomlin, and Betty White. (Andrew Garfield, the Peter Parker to Field’s Aunt May in The Amazing Spider-Man, will be on hand at the Screen Actors Guild Awards tonight to present her with the prize.) “Sally is a massive star with a working actor’s ethos—just keep doing the work, being as good as you can,” SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said in a statement last month. “Every stage of an actor’s life brings different opportunities, and you just need to keep working. Sally does not stop and we hope she never does.”
Here, to celebrate Field’s outstanding achievement across television, film, and stage over 55 years (and counting…80 for Brady is in theaters as we speak!), Vogue is taking a fond look back through the photographic archives. Ahead of the 2023 SAG Awards, revisit 20 charming vintage pictures of the great Sally Field, below.
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Born and raised in southern California, Field made her television debut at 18 in the sitcom Gidget, starring as a boy-crazy beach bunny.
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Field’s next lead television role was as Sister Bertrille in The Flying Nun (1967–1970). (To her right is Marge Redmond, playing the wise Sister Jacqueline.)
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In the made-for-television crime drama Mongo’s Back in Town, co-starring Telly Savalas, Joe Don Baker, and Martin Sheen.
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With Jessica Walter, Jill Haworth, and Eleanor Parker in the TV slasher film Home for the Holidays.
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In a tight spot with Arnold Schwarzenegger, her co-star in the com-dram Stay Hungry.
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For her performance in the made-for-television drama Sybil, about a young woman with dissociative identity disorder, Field earned her first Primetime Emmy Award. (In later years, she would win two more for her work on ER and Brothers & Sisters.)
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With Burt Reynolds—whom Field dated on and off from 1976 until 1982—in Smokey and the Bandit.
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Sporting some spiffy suiting for an appearance on The Bill Boggs Show in New York City.
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Field with Peter Craig, one of her sons with her first husband, Steve Craig, at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
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Promoting Martin Ritt’s Norma Rae at the Cannes Film Festival.
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Out and about in New York with Mia Farrow.
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At the 52nd Academy Awards, where Field claimed the best-actress Oscar for her performance in Norma Rae.
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Wearing a jaunty knit vest as she sat for a 20/20 interview.
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In a promotional still for the Martin Ritt rom-com Murphy’s Romance.
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Accepting her second Oscar, for the drama Places in the Heart, Field famously effused, “I can’t deny the fact that you like me—right now, you like me!”
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Posing with her Steel Magnolias co-stars Julia Roberts, Shirley MacLaine, Dolly Parton, and Daryl Hannah in Los Angeles.
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At a performance of Twelfth Night with Tom Hanks (Field’s co-star in 1988’s Punchline and, later on, 1994’s Forrest Gump), Rita Wilson, and Field’s second husband, Alan Greisman.
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In layered neutrals at the First Annual Revlon Walk for Breast Cancer Research in Rancho Park, California.
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Field made her directorial debut with the 1996 television film The Christmas Tree, starring Julie Harris (at Field’s left) and Andrew McCarthy.
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With her friend—and future 80 for Brady co-star—Jane Fonda at a Paramount Pictures event.
