The 1967 role Sally Field wants to delete from history: “I was trying to figure out who I was”
If you’re a 1990s kid, you might know Sally Field as Mrs Doubtfire’s ex-wife or Aunt May in The Amazing Spider-Man, and if you’ve been around a little longer, she might be M’Lynn Eatenton, the tender but tough mother of Shelby in Steel Magnolias, but none of these would have been possible if she hadn’t once been known as The Flying Nun.
After an unsuccessful stint as the titular character in Gidget, the actor was cast in the starring role of ABC’s fantasy series about a nun who can take to the skies when the right gust of wind catches her cornette.
It might sound completely absurd to us younger generations (possibly because it is), but the show ran for three seasons and made Field a household name in the USA. But, despite its success, the actor has no qualms with admitting that she wishes she hadn’t taken the role.
“I hated doing The Flying Nun so much,” she told journalist Willy Geist, “I was 18/19 years old. Who wanted to play a nun?”
The year the show aired, Field’s peers were out taking part in the sexual revolution, protesting on college campuses and, in general, enjoying life. As the actor put it, “It was the ‘60s by then! Everybody was, you know, eating granola and dropping out and marching and walking around naked!”
So it’s not that Field dislikes the role in hindsight after a successful career full of more serious roles; it’s that she hated the whole idea at the time. “I was trying to figure out who I was, but I knew who I wasn’t: a flying nun,” she joked.
It’s not exactly the most fun role for a young adult to take on, and she felt that she should have been out there exploring her own sexuality, finding herself and taking parts that spoke to her more directly. Especially given the fact that she wasn’t even religious.
Sadly, or thankfully, depending on which way you view the scenario, Field took the role despite initially being brave and saying no. After the cancellation of Gidget, she didn’t have many options on the horizon, and her (abusive, according to her memoir) stepfather pressured her to take the part, warning her she might never work again.
And so, not being “old enough, strong enough, or sophisticated enough to tell him that he was wrong”, Field became The Flying Nun and the rest is history. The main downside is that the actor was then heavily typecast immediately following the ABC series, from Maybe I’ll Come Home in Spring to The Girl with Something Extra, as quirky but sensible characters.
Then again, they were all respectable roles that would lead to her eventual breakthrough on the big screen in movies like Sybil and Smokey and the Bandit. Although Field wished she’d gotten something a little more interesting early on, if it wasn’t for The Flying Nun, she might not have become the household name she is today.
