Oregon daily emerald., June 05, 1978, Page 14, Image 34

that wants to go out and have a good time. They don’t ever
think of the box office; you get the power to do these parts
partly from box office; a director may want you but he still
has to sell you to the studio.”
She explains herself as if she had thought out the answer
long before the question was asked. Sally may still look tiny
and cute but, during her lunch break from the filming of
Hooper at Burbank studios, she’s all business — with not
time for small talk or anything frivolous. No wrinkling of the
nose or Gidgetish giggling.
“You have to be versatile. That’s one of the keys to being
a working actress forever, not just three years, or five years,
but until I'm 89. I did Smokey because I wanted to follow
Sybil with being a romantic, grown-up woman, sitting across
from Burt Reynolds and have Burt Reynolds be attracted to
her. When you do something as heavy as Sybil, people will
say, ‘Yeah, she’s a good actress, but she’s ugly ... or she’s
weird, has no sense of humor, she can’t play comedy.’
“It’s just as hard, believe it or not, to do Smokey and the
Bandit as anything else. I don’t want to put Sybil down be
cause I’m very proud of it, but it was like glitter, fancy
footwork. I’m not saying it wasn’t hard, but it looks flashy so
everyone goes ‘wow.’ Subtle comedy is the hardest thing.”
Her ploy to establish herself as a box office power seems to
be working. Three movies have followed Smokey (Heroes, with
Henry Winkler, and two soon-to-be released films with Burt
Reynolds, The End and Hooper) and now she’s filming her
first dramatic movie lead —Norma Rae, the story of an early
woman union organizer in the South. Variety puts Sally in
the company of Diane Keaton, Genevieve Bujold and Jill
Clayburgh as four actresses currently getting $200,000 to
$250,000 per film but who, because of their growing box
office draw, will be getting $400,000 per outing in their next
contracts. (Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross, Faye Dunaway
and Jane Fonda are the only movie actresses currently bet
ter paid.)
But Smokey did more than give Sally contractual clout; it
also intertwined her romantically with Burt Reynolds. Their
low-key romance has not been hot gossip column copy, but
Reynolds cast her in The End, which he directed and starred
in, and took her along to Hooper. According to friends on the
set of Hooper, the two have much in common — both came
up from television and both are cool and calculating profes
/ r\&
Sally & Burt: a rare public outing
sionals, totally devoid of temperament. While other stars see
themselves as tormented artists, either boozing themselves
into a stupor or locking themselves in the dressing room
trailer for an afternoon of sulking, Reynolds and Field sim
ply grind out the work, never allowing personal quirks — or
their relationship — to interfere.
Watching Sally watch Burt on the set, it all seems to fit
She sits detachedly doing needlepoint while Burt shoots a
scene with co-stars Jan Michael-Vincent and Brian Keith.
All three could have been strangers for the interest Sally
showed.
“They're never lovey-dovey on the set,” claims one stage
hand. “They’re very private.” Sally, in fact, is so private
that she’s a non-entity in the show business social whirl; she
didn’t even bother to attend the Emmys the night she won.
“1 didn’t have anything to wear,” she shrugs. Burt, on the
other hand, maintains a higher profile and lately has been
dragging reluctant Sally along with him.
Sally’s no-nonsense approach to her work was most evi
dent in Heroes, which, according to Sally and others in the
cast, was plagued with a large problem the director,
Jeremy Paul Kagan. “All of a sudden you realized that this
man doesn’t even know the dialogue, he doesn t know where
to put the camera, doesn’t know how to talk to actors and is
just a rotten person. You find yourself not only working
around him, but directing him as well. I hat s not true with
a good director. You don’t tell Marty Ritt where to put the
camera.” Sally’s co-star, Henry Winkler, has said that Sally
took the helm from Kagen and directed entire scenes. “I
don’t ever want to have to do that again, ’ she says.
Heroes was supposed to have been the same breakthrough
picture for Henry that Stay Hungry was for Sally. But it didn t
work that way; despite Heroes and another role in The One and
Only, Henry is still very much the Fonz. Television seems to
close more doors than it opens.
“I don’t think you can judge like that,’ maintains Sally.
“There were times that I was stuck in it that I thought I
should have gone another way. But at the same time 1 was
being handicapped by being the girl next door, the adorable
saccharin whatever, I was getting an enormous education,
an education that you couldn’t get elsewhere. It freed me as
an actor to be able to use that machine (the camera). It
doesn’t use me, I can use it.
“When I think back on it now, I say 'Sally, how did you
ever do it? How did you not just die of fear? You have your
own TV series and you don’t even have an agent or know
what a two-shot is.’ I had a protective device — and I know
it was a protective device because I look back at the film and
say ‘Good god almighty, you were bad’ — but 1 thought in
my heart at the time that I was the world’s greatest actress.
It didn’t make me feel superior to people, I just felt I had it
inside and that I just needed information and growth for it
to come out. If I hadn’t had this kind of protective device, I
would have been a quivering mass of insecurities. I still have
protective devices working today.”
Sally Field may still have protective devices working to
day, but one thing is certain — she has less need for them.^
Stephen Randall, currently an associate editor for Los Angeles magazine, has
tracked down news for the Los Angeles Free Press and chased skirts (so to
speak) for Women’s Wear Daily; he is known far and wide (by at least
three people) for his wit and charm.
■ P7-10025R1
Produced by John Ryan
On Prodigal Records & Tapes