Sally Field Criticizes Burt Reynolds Over Jealousy-Fueled Oscars Snub: 'Not a Nice Guy'

Sally Field isn't holding back when it comes to what her relationship with Burt Reynolds was really like. The Oscar-winning actress, 77, opens up in Dave Karger's upcoming book 50 Oscar Nights, debuting Jan. 23, revealing that Reynolds "was not happy" with all the attention she was getting at the time for her role in 1979's Norma Rae.

"He really was not a nice guy around me then," the actress says in an excerpt published by PEOPLE, revealing he didn't want his then-girlfriend to go to the Cannes Film Festival at all. "He said, 'You don't think you're going to win anything, do you?'" she recalls. Reynolds was so unsupportive of Field that he "was not going to go" as her date to the 52nd Academy Awards ceremony in 1980, where she would be awarded her first Best Actress Oscar. 

She would eventually be accompanied by actor and comedian David Steinberg and his then-wife, Judy, to the ceremony, as she initially "didn't know what to do" about not having a date. "Then David said, 'Well, for God's sakes, we'll take you,'" Field recalls. "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."

Reynolds and Field first met on the set of Smokey and the Bandit, and the two frequent co-stars would go on to date for five years before they split. Reynolds died in 2018 at age 82, and Field revealed in a March 2022 interview with Variety that she hadn't spoken with him for 30 years prior to his death. "He was not someone I could be around. He was just not good for me in any way," she said at the time. "And he had somehow invented in his rethinking of everything that I was more important to him than he had thought, but I wasn't. He just wanted to have the thing he didn't have. I just didn't want to deal with that."

Nevertheless, Field penned a heartfelt tribute to her ex following his passing. "There are times in your life that are so indelible, they never fade away. They stay alive, even 40 years later," the Forrest Gump actress said in a statement at the time. "My years with Burt never leave my mind. He will be in my history and my heart, for as long as I live. Rest, Buddy."