Sally Field Reveals Why She Was So Nervous on Her First Date With Burt Reynolds

Sally Field thought she was going to “pass out” on her first date with Burt Reynolds.

The Oscar-winning actress, 79, spoke candidly on the latest episode of TCM’s Talking Pictures podcast about the nerve-racking start of her relationship with her Smokey and the Bandit co-star, who died in 2018 at the age of 82.

Field recalled initially getting a call from Reynolds as he sussed her out as a potential Smokey and the Bandit co-star, which “shocked” the young actress, as she was best known at the time for starring in ABC‘s teen sitcomGidget and the TV movie Sybil.

“I was so shocked that he would call me, and I thought, ‘He couldn’t have seen Sybil, because boy, I look really like a very mentally ill person in it,'” Field remembered. “And he said, ‘No, I hadn’t seen it. I just always liked you in Gidget.'”

Field agreed to meet Reynolds for a date, but admitted she was “so nervous” she feared she would “pass out.”

“I hadn’t really ever been on any dates,” the Remarkably Bright Creatures star explained. “I started when I was 18 in television, and the whole world of that ilk was swept away from me.”

When the time for their date came, Field said she felt completely out of her depth, as Reynolds’ bodyguard had to be the one to knock on her door.

“I went down, and I remember just sort of being a fool, a clown. I only know how to be a clown when I’m nervous,” she recalled, adding that the evening was “all a blur” due to her nerves. “Like, what was I doing there? I didn’t know. I had learned how to be an actor, but I didn’t know how to do that. I didn’t know how to be that girl.”

Field and Reynolds would go on to have a tumultuous five-year relationship starting in 1976, and today, the Steel Magnolias star remembers him as a “wonderful, but incredibly complicated” man.

This story was originally published by Parade on Jun 15, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.