Sally Field Can’t Hide Her Age Since Millions Watched Her Grow Up on TV

What’s this? “Gidget” is playing the mother of a grown daughter in “Steel Magnolias”? How can that be?

“Why not?” Sally Field said. “I’m not too young to play the mother of an adult. I have a son who is only one year younger than Julia Roberts is in real life. Julia is 21. My son is 20. I had him when I was 23, which is why I never hesitate to reveal my age. I’m 43. That’s how old I am. This is how I look. This is what happens when you have a child in your 20s.”

Someone said that other actresses lie about their ages, so why shouldn’t she?

“The truth is,” Field said, “I can’t lie about my age. Everybody has watched me grow up. I could never get away with it. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out my age.”

She is frequently asked about how it all began, how Field became the television star, then the movie star, then the movie star with her own company. Legend has it that she was approached on the street by an agent who was looking for someone to play the title role in “Gidget,” the television series.

In truth, she had enrolled in a film studio workshop, and it was there that an agent spotted her. She was tested and did “Gidget.” That lasted one year. A few years later, she did “The Flying Nun.” It lasted three years.

“The career was just presented to me on a plate,” she said. “It was like a calling. I never even went to college.”

She plays Roberts’ mother in “Steel Magnolias,” the fictionalized story of a young woman, a diabetic, who goes against the advice of her doctors, has a child and dies from the complications. Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine, Daryl Hannah and Olympia Dukakis are in the cast of the film.

According to Field, she and the other women got along like country girls at a quilting bee. “We did,” she said. “We stayed up all night. We talked and played games, that sort of thing. We were a raunchy group, rude, crude and lewd. I don’t think that need ever dies, the need for companionship.

“To me, the movie is about friendship. There is nothing more tragic than losing a child, and when you do, you need friends. We need each other. We need to be touched. That’s what the film is about.”