Sally Field Confesses She Felt Like a 'Clown' and 'Nearly Passed Out' During Her First Date with Burt Reynolds

Angela AndaloroMon, June 15, 2026 at 7:57 PM UTC

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Sally Field and Burt ReynoldsCredit: Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty -

Sally Field and Burt Reynolds dated on and off from 1976 to 1982

Field, 79, looked back at working with and dating Reynolds during a recent appearance on Turner Classic Movies' Talking Pictures podcast

Reynolds died at 82 in September 2018

Sally Field is looking back at her relationship with Burt Reynolds.

The actress, 79, opened up about working with her late partner, as well as their personal relationship, during her appearance on Turner Classic Movies' Talking Pictures podcast.

Field explained that she first connected with Reynolds when the late actor got wind that she might potentially be his Smokey and the Bandit co-star, which was a surprise to the actress. After searching for the perfect project after the conclusion of The Flying Nun, she had just wrapped her breakthrough television film, Sybil.

"I was so shocked that he would call me, and I thought, 'He couldn't have seen Sybil, because boy, I look really like a very mentally ill person in it.' And he said, 'No, I hadn't seen it. I just always liked you in Gidget,' " she recalled.

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Burt Reynolds and Sally Field in 'Smokey and the Bandit'Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

While it wasn't the height of Reynolds' fame, Field acknowledged, "He was a big deal, but he was on his way to being a bigger deal. He was on his way to being what he became."

Field explained that she auditioned with him, sharing, "The script was vile. There wasn't a script. We basically just dumped it and ad-libbed our way through."

After the trying audition, "He called me up. I was in a hotel, a different hotel than he... And, he said, 'Well, I'll take you out to dinner.' And of course, I was so nervous. I thought I would pass out."

Field explained that getting started as a young actress left her little time for romance, admitting, "I had really never been on any dates. I started when I was 18 in television, and the whole world of that ilk was swept away from me."

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Burt Reynolds and Sally Field in 1978Credit: Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty

Reynolds was already famous enough that he "couldn't come in the lobby" for fear of being spotted by fans. To make the date happen, "He had his bodyguard, Pete... Pete came in, knocked on my door, and I went down, and I remember just sort of being a fool, a clown."

"I only know how to be a clown when I'm nervous. And, you know, we went... Did we even go to dinner? Yeah, we went to dinner. I think there were others there. I remember that there were others there. I just was nervous. It was all just a blur. Like, what was I doing there? I didn't know how—I had learned how to be an actor, but I didn't know how to do that. I didn't know how to be that girl."

The date began their off-and-on five-year relationship, which wasn't always easy. Field noted, "Burt was a wonderful but incredibly complicated character, man, who was very much like my stepfather that I grew up with. And I had a really tumultuous relationship with my stepfather. And he was — he frightened me, and he tormented me, and yet I worshipped him."

She later continued, "He frightened me. He put me down. And all I did was I wanted to please him. I wanted to be right for him. I wanted to be good enough. I wanted to be good enough. And that was my stepfather. He would humiliate me. Um, my stepfather, and ultimately Burt did too. But then the thing was that something in me wanted to be an actor more than I cared about anything else."

Sally Field and Burt ReynoldsCredit: Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

Things fell apart between the two when Field received the script for 1979's union drama Norma Rae— a film that would eventually earn Field her first Oscar.

"I had studied and studied and studied... It was the first thing that had come my way that I didn't walk into a room knowing that no one wanted me, except I had to be so much better than the other women who'd come in the room."

"Burt read [the script] and threw it at me, threw it in my face, and said that no lady of his was going to play a whore," she recalled.

"I found myself sticking up for Norma. And it was the turning point for me and for us, because I was always frightened of Burt's brutality. He could be physically mean, like my stepfather was. And I was so little... But I'm an angry person," she says. "It was the big part of who I am that my stepfather gave me, just absolute rage. Don't you f---ing mess with me. And Burt stepped over the line, wanting to get in the way of my work."

Reynolds, who died at 82 in September 2018, ultimately refused to attend the Oscars with Field the night she won Best Lead Actress, and in 1982, the two would part ways for good.

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