Sally Field Says Burt Reynolds Threw Norma Rae Script at Her

Sally Field says burt reynolds tried to stop her from making Norma Rae, then threw the script at her. She says the fight over the 1979 film became the point where she started pulling away from him, even after they had already made four movies together.

Smokey and the Bandit to Norma Rae

Field said, "I really only did one movie with Burt, which was Smokey and the Bandit." She met Reynolds while making the 1977 crime caper, then went on to make three more collaborations with him, including the 1980 sequel and the 1978 films Hooper and The End. The sequence matters because the career choice she made after that run changed the terms of their relationship.

Field said Reynolds called the Norma Rae character a whore because she had some sexual past. When she wanted the role, she said, "This is the better of me." She met with director Marty Ritt and took the part anyway, turning what Reynolds opposed into the project she says she needed at that moment.

Cannes and the Oscar night

Field said Reynolds discouraged her from attending the Norma Rae premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, where the film drew a standing ovation for about 10 minutes. "It was a standing ovation for like 10 minutes, and I started to cry," she said. She said the premiere gave the film public momentum before the awards run that followed.

Field also said Reynolds refused to attend the Oscars with her the night she won Best Lead Actress. That left her accepting the biggest prize of the campaign without him beside her, after he had already tried to keep her from the role in the first place. She said, "Being Norma at that time was exactly what I needed, because to learn how to stand in her shoes, I think I said this [in her 2018 memoir In Pieces], I could feel my own legs."

1982 and the end

Field said she and Reynolds entered a tumultuous, complicated relationship after meeting in 1977, and that he was very much like her stepfather, who had abused her as a child. She said Reynolds was her exercising her stepfather out of her brain. The relationship ended for good in 1982, but the turning point came earlier, when Norma Rae gave her a way out of the dynamic she was already questioning.

For readers who only knew the pair as a screen team, the useful takeaway is simple: Norma Rae was not just another credit in a five-year relationship. It was the role Field says helped her separate a work decision from Reynolds’ control, and it became the film that pushed her into the center of her own career.