Sally Field reveals a potential date with Steven Spielberg led to their decades-long friendship

Sally Field's 50-year friendship with filmmaker Steven Spielberg began with a little matchmaking.

The actress introduced her former Lincoln director and the rest of The Fabelmans team as recipients of the Vanguard Award at the 34th Palm Springs Film Awards on Thursday, where she reminisced about the first time she met Spielberg circa the late 1960s. The reason for their initial meeting, according to Field, was a potential date.

"My newly acquired business manager wanted me to meet one of his clients and wanted me to go to Universal for a supposed 'meeting' because he thought the two of us would really hit it off," Field said. "And though we never actually went on a date together, my beloved Steven Spielberg has never left my life. For almost 50 years — is it really? — we have gone through this life that's been filled with good and bad, the laughter and the angst."

Amy Sussman/Getty for Palm Springs International Film Society Sally Field and Steven Spielberg at the Palm Springs Film Awards

Spielberg has "been my biggest supporter and a constantly welcoming place," she said. "I honestly can't imagine my life without him at this point, but I can't imagine our country, much less the industry, had Steven Spielberg never held a camera in his hands. His vision, his sense of humor and fun, of terror and entertainment, his humanity and heart has been woven into the whole world's consciousness."

"For almost six decades," Field continued, the director "has terrified, touched, and enthralled the entire planet. His art is so deeply in our blood that it's easy to take him for granted."

A standing ovation greeted Spielberg and his collaborators once they came onstage to accept the award. The filmmaker thanked Field for the tribute and called her work as Mary Todd Lincoln in his 2012 drama about former President Abraham Lincoln "one of the best performances" of her "long Oscar-winning career." The actress was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar at the 2013 ceremony for her role.

"Sally has been part of my family, part of our lives, and she went to our wedding 31 years ago and she's been everywhere with us and we with her," Spielberg said.

Universal Paul Dano and Michelle Williams in 'The Fabelmans'

The film's stars Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen, Gabriel LaBelle, Judd Hirsch, Julia Butters, Sam Rechner, and Keeley Karsten also joined Spielberg to celebrate the award. Past recipients of the Vanguard Award include Belfast, La La Land, Green Book, The Shape of Water,  Little Miss Sunshine, and The Trial of the Chicago 7.

Festival chairman Harold Matzner said it was an "honor" to present the award to Spielberg and co. in a statement. "The Fabelmans is an achievement not only as a deeply personal portrait of Steven Spielberg's childhood, but also as a profoundly universal story that each and every one of us can relate to."

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