Sally Field on Why Burt Reynolds Refused to Attend the Oscars with Her: ‘Not a Nice Guy Around Me Then’

Burt Reynolds was “not happy” with Sally Field’s career buzz ahead of the 1980 Academy Awards, she reveals in a new book

Sally Field is getting candid about her tumultuous relationship with Burt Reynolds.

In Dave Karger’s new book 50 Oscar Nights (out Jan. 23), the two-time Academy Award-winning actress recalls that Reynolds, her boyfriend at the time, “was not happy” with the buzz she was receiving for leading Norma Rae.

“He really was not a nice guy around me then,” reveals the actress, now 77. In 1980 ahead of the 52nd Academy Awards ceremony, she says, Reynolds “was not going to go” as her date.

There had been signs Reynolds was not supportive of her career-changing titular performance in Norma Rae. “He did not want me to go to Cannes [Film Festival] at all,” says Field in 50 Oscar Nights. “He said, ‘You don’t think you’re going to win anything, do you?’”

Ultimately, she adds, "when the Oscars came around, he really was not a nice guy around me then and was not going to go with me," Field reveals. For the 1980 show, it was actor and comedian David Steinberg and his then-wife, Judy, who came to the rescue to celebrate what would be her first Academy Award win.

Field “didn’t know what to do” about not having a date to the ceremony, she says. “Then David said, ‘Well, for God’s sakes, we’ll take you.’ He and Judy made it a big celebration. They picked me up in a limousine and had champagne in the car. They made it just wonderful fun.”

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Related: Sally Field Is 'Glad' Burt Reynolds Won't Read Her Upcoming Memoir: 'This Would Hurt Him'

Reynolds, who died in 2018 at age 82, dated Field for five years in the late '70s and early '80s after meeting her on Smokey and the Bandit, the first of four movies they co-starred in. 

As Field detailed in her 2018 memoir In Pieces, which came out days after Reynolds' death, the Boogie Nights star “was a hugely important part of my life but for a very short period of my life… I really didn’t speak to him for the last 30 years of his life.”

When asked in a 2022 interview for a costar who gave the worst onscreen smooch, Field said kissing Reynolds involved “a lot of drooling.”

Prior to his death, Reynolds said that he felt Field was the one he should have married and had kids with. In the new documentary I Am Burt Reynolds, his The Last Movie Star director Adam Rifkin said when Reynolds was asked about why the couple split, the ladies' man simply told Rifkin, "I screwed up."

Field’s experience at the 1980 Oscars ceremony, where she won the Best Actress statuette for Norma Rae, ended up being a positive one. (She would win the award again five years later for Places in the Heart.)

“I remember I went someplace and had my hair done,” she recalls in 50 Oscar Nights. “I don’t believe I had anybody do my makeup. In those days you just did it yourself.”

Legendary designer Bob Mackie, she adds, made her outfit for the night — a white strapless dress with a sheer floral cover. “He offered to do it and he was such a lovely guy.”

But, continues Field, “it was a little white suit. And I remember thinking, 'Oh, don’t I get a princess dress?' He said he thought I wasn’t that fancy. So I put that on.”

50 Oscar nights details the all-too-human problems, from crushing romantic heartbreak to a case of the flu, that have occurred behind the scenes of cinema’s biggest night for 95 years.

Related: Oprah Winfrey on the Question She Asked Sally Field About Burt Reynolds That Makes Her 'Cringe' Today

“The surprise of putting this book together was to learn that for many people, winning an Academy Award is not necessarily an entirely positive experience,” Karger tells PEOPLE. 

“You’d think that reaching the pinnacle of this high-profile profession would simply feel euphoric, but a lot of these interviews showed me that for many people, it carries with it much more complex emotions than I had ever imagined.”

Field starred alongside Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda and Rita Moreno in last year’s hit 80 for Brady.

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