Sally field reflects on family, hollywood longevity, movies

But Margaret came around. During the six years the women lived together, Field says, they "had lots of laughing times," even as her mother did round after "grisly,

savage" round of chemo, which reduced her to "this little sparrow of a person." Field wasn't so sure that chasing a cure was best for Margaret. Though she admired her

mother's fighting spirit, she also wondered, "Isn't there a point when you say, 'Stop it,' and embrace life for what it is?" Margaret died at age 89 in 2011,

and enough time has passed for Field to settle into a new stage of life: one in which she is no one's primary caregiver and does not need help herself. And that has opened her up to a

new kind of life and a new kind of thinking. "In so many ways I feel like I'm new to myself," she explains. "I believe all of us, in every stage of our lives, are coming

of age." She married young and divorced young, and then married and divorced again. "Obviously, I'm not very good at marriage," she says. She recently read Gloria

Steinem's new memoir, and something Steinem wrote rang true to Field. "She said, if you never really had a productive connection with the father or fathers in your life, you have a

hard time recognizing what that connection is. I don't think I ever really understood what that connection is on a male and female level." She's close with her three sons:

Peter Craig, 46; Eli Craig, 43; and Sam Greisman, 28. She has close male relationships, and she's had good romantic ones. She was famously involved with Burt Reynolds, who recently

wrote in his memoir that he still pines for Field. In a 1986 interview with _Playboy_, she discussed her relationship with him, about how she'd take care of her kids and then see to

Reynolds' needs. She decided she didn't want to do that anymore, and he couldn't handle that, so they broke up. Video: 'Hello, My Name Is Doris' Movie Trailer Field

focuses on passion projects and things that are important to her. Chris Craymer Field was born on the other side of the hill, in Pasadena, into a working-class showbiz family. Her mother was

an actress with unstable work — an episode of _Bonanza_ here, a _Perry Mason_ there — and her father was an Army officer.  They divorced when Field was 4; her mother soon married a stuntman

and actor who Field has said was emotionally abusive to her and her brother. (She also has a younger half-sister.) In the theater clubs in junior high and high school, Field learned her

craft. Even before she graduated, she landed the TV show _Gidget, _and then _The Flying Nun_, but she wasn't happy on those sets, which were filled mainly with older people. She was

lonely. There were a few folks her age, extras mostly. She was friendly with them, but it never really went anywhere. "I became aware of this whole caste system that was going on,"

Field says. "Some people would come up and talk to me, but they didn't really want to get to know me. It was all so strange, and all of it served to isolate me, and I was already

not the most social human being."