Sally Field to receive SAG lifetime achievement award: How she got her big break with 'Gidget'

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Oscar-winning character Sally Field’s profession has spanned astir 60 years, from nan clip she started playing nan precocious teen Gidget connected TV to her caller drama "80 for Brady."

On Sunday, nan 76-year-old will person a life accomplishment grant from nan Screen Actors Guild.

"She has an enduring profession because she is authentic successful her capacity and ever projects likability and humanity — she conscionable connects," SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher said successful a statement. "That’s portion of why she has sustained her monolithic fandom and incredibly rich | and layered career. Sally is simply a monolithic prima pinch a moving actor’s ethos — conscionable support doing nan work, being arsenic bully arsenic you can. Every shape of an actor’s life brings different opportunities, and you conscionable request to support working. Sally does not extremity and we dream she ne'er does."

Here is simply a look backmost astatine nan actress's prolific assemblage of work.

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Sally Field's TV and movie profession has spanned 7 decades. (JC Olivera/WireImage)

"Gidget"

Field donned pigtails and a bikini arsenic an 18-year-old erstwhile she played spunky teen Gidget successful nan 1965 comedy bid of nan aforesaid sanction astir a Southern California woman who loves nan formation and boys. It was her first large role.

In 2008, Field told Oprah Winfrey she landed nan domiciled aft a casting head who saw her astatine an acting shop asked her to travel successful for an audition.

"The waiting room was filled pinch girls who looked for illustration movie stars," she said of her "Gidget" audition. "They each had master headshots; nan only pictures I had were wallet photos of maine pinch my friends. At my surface test, I walked successful and said, ‘Which 1 is nan camera?’ The unit members were like, ‘Oh, boy.’ But nan casting head said, ‘You're it.’ God was looking retired for me. He thought he'd propulsion maine successful nan water and spot if I could swim."

Field called playing nan lead successful nan one-season drama "bliss."

"I was successful heaven, learning arsenic overmuch arsenic I could learn," she told Winfrey. "I loved, loved, loved each infinitesimal of it. On nan show, Don Porter, who played my father, was this sweet, loving, gentle, generous man you wished was your father."

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Field landed her first starring domiciled connected "Gidget" successful 1965. (ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)

"The Flying Nun"

In 1967, Field moved connected to another sitcom, "The Flying Nun," portraying Sister Bertrille, a do-gooder who wasn’t acrophobic to thief group by measurement of her aerodynamic cornette.

The actress, however, told Winfrey she ne'er wanted nan role. "I didn't want to do it. I was trying to fig retired who I was, but I knew who I wasn't: a flying nun," she said. "I was almost 19, and my sexuality needed to beryllium explored. So, I said no, which I thought was incredibly brave."

Field said her stepfather talked her into accepting nan portion because he said if she didn’t return it, she mightiness ne'er activity again.

The character said she took nan occupation retired of "fear" and it turned into "three long, difficult years" and nan show became a immense joke. "I felt denigrated arsenic a person," she admitted.

In 2017, Field told nan Guardian that she felt she had to "claw" her measurement retired of being typecast arsenic a sitcom star.

"I started truthful young and was sucked up successful tv and past it took a agelong clip to get retired of television," she said. "Films didn’t want thing to do pinch television. They weren’t making immoderate movies pinch anybody different than models."

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