#SPOTTED: SALLY FIELD IN TORONTO FOR MEMOIR “IN PIECES”

Two-time Academy Award winner and Film/Television icon Sally Field made a rare visit to Toronto tonight. While she undisputedly is a star of the screen having starred in classics like Steel Magnolias, Mrs. Doubtfire, Matters of the Heart and Norma Jean, she visits to promote her Memoir, IN PIECES. The Book is a culmination of seven years’ worth of writing without the intention of her words ever been seen. Field appeared before an intimate audience at Indigo Manulife Centre  in a conversation moderated by Indigo Chapters Chair & CEO Heather Reisman.

She reveals that following the passing of her mother Margaret Field back in 2011, something had been bothering her and the writings that would become this Book, were an opportunity for her finally to understand her mother. “I had do find out what was gnawing on me, so I pulled out all the pieces and put them on the table to see if I could put together something I couldn’t see before. I didn’t even know the question I was asking.”. Fields adds, “It was something terribly unsettling. Where am I going and the whole time never thinking it was a book that would be accomplished or anyone else looking at it but me. In those seven years, I focused and it became an obsession to learn a new craft.  To learn through some of the tools and techniques I had learned to be an actor that I applied in trying to learn this extraordinary world of words that I’ve always been in profound awe of.”.  She compiled letters and unread reviews as long as 40 years ago and putting her story together. “Don’t throw it away”, she told herself, “Some day you’ll want to piece yourself together and you’ll need this piece to do it.”.

The Book touches upon candidly, her talent and drive always to be better as an Actress. At 72 years of age, she still is mastering her craft, set to take the stage at London’s Old Vic in the new year. Courageously she talks about having endured abusive relationships with partners and her stepfather. Field says, “I wrote this seven years ago, long before #METOO. I think it’s spectacular and I hope that we keep going on to see what happens on the other side of rage and outage. My attempt was to look how at these childhood patterns that get so ingrained in you that they lead you for the rest of your life.”. “All of us as adults, our task is to understand what those childhood patterns were, whether we came from an abusive, traumatic childhood or what we thought was a nice childhood. We have to try to to detanglize, get it out of the way and leave it there so that we can move on as adults.”.

On her stepfather, she recalls “I was terrified to be swept off the ground by a man I didn’t know. He was loud and boisterous. And laughed at my face in a jovial way. As a tiny child even then I could hear the unspoken dialogue. Mom would be, ‘Don’t you cry. I need you to like him. I need this to work out well’. And he needed me to be in his arms. Everyone was looking at me and paying attention to me, especially when my own dad treated me like I didn’t exist.”. “Even as a tiny child, I was taught conflicting emotions at the same time. Danger and love – they get wired together so that the only way I could identify being loved was feeling threatened.”.

See some Snaps below. Tap left and right arrows to navigate slideshow:

 

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The incomparable #SallyField! What a night listening to the iconic two-time Academy Award winner reflect on her talent, drive, relationships and family courtesy of @chaptersindigo! More on the Blog in a bit. Field’s Memoir #InPieces is out now!

A post shared by Mr. Will Wong 📸 (@mrwillwong) on Oct 9, 2018 at 5:51pm PDT

 

Only about 200 fans were lucky enough to meet Field who in addition to signing copies of her Book, took her time graciously chatting with every single one of her fans and taking photos with them.

More on the Memoir here.

 

(Photo credit: Mr. Will Wong)