When Sally Field won her first Oscar, Burt Reynolds refused to go with her because he was jealous.

In her new book about the past of the Academy Awards, the two-time winner talks about her troubled relationship with Reynolds and her win for “Norma Rae” in 1980.

Although Burt Reynolds called Sally Field “the love of his life,” she has said that he didn’t treat her very well when they were a Hollywood power couple and she was nominated for her first Academy Award for her role in the 1979 movie “Norma Rae,” which changed her career.

In a new book about the history of the Academy Awards, Field writes that Reynolds, who was dating her at the time, “was not happy” with all the attention she was getting for her role as a union organizer in “Norma Rae.” This role marked the end of her transition from a silly TV and movie star to a serious actor in major movies.

In the new book “50 Oscar Nights” by Dave Karger, the two-time winner of the award for Best Actress said, “He really wasn’t a nice guy around me then.”

People claimed that Field, who was 77 at the time, told Reynolds ‘was not going to go’ to the 52nd Academy Awards in 1980. She had to trust her friends, David Steinberg (actor and comic) and Judy Steinberg (his wife at the time), to take her.

“David said, ‘Goodness, we’ll take you,'” Field wrote about it in the book. “He and Judy threw a big party.” There was champagne in the limo when they picked me up. Their actions made it really fun.

That Reynolds turned down the part of Field’s red carpet escort shouldn’t have been a surprise, since he wasn’t excited about her being in ‘Norma Rae’, she wrote in her book.

The author of the book says, “He didn’t want me to go to Cannes at all.” Field said that Reynolds asked her, “You don’t think you’re going to win anything, do you?” at the Oscar.

Reynolds died in September 2018 at the age of 82. Field has talked about her “complicated” friendship with Reynolds in the past. Reynolds cast her as his partner in his hit action comedy “Smokey and the Bandit” in 1977. The relationship ended in 1982.

Since then, Field and Reynolds have told different versions of their long and troubled love story. Reynolds said he felt bad that things didn’t work out between them while pushing his 2015 autobiography, “But Enough About Me.” He talked about her as “the love of his life” and said, “I think we would have been very happy.”

Reynolds also told the “Today” show a few months before he died that he thought Field’s ability was really cool. He told Hoda Kotb that’s why he put her in “Smoky and the Bandit.”

According to what Field told People in 2016, they had not stayed in touch, showing that he had a different opinion. Additionally, in 2018, she told the New York Times that their relationship was “loving” but “really complicated and hurtful to me.”

“In Pieces,” Field’s book that came out soon after Reynolds’ death, described him as charismatic and cocky, according to the New York Times. Their relationship was “intense,” the book says. According to other interviews, Field was thrilled that Reynolds, who was one of Hollywood’s biggest sex icons at the time, thought she was beautiful enough to be his ‘Smokey and the Bandit’ love partner.

Field explained, “He made me feel hot, and I wanted to be everything he ever wanted.” “That was terrible, though, because I stopped existing.” I dressed for him, looked for him, and walked for him.

Field finally realized that Reynolds could be controlling, according to her autobiography. Some parts of her life and attitude were okay with him, but others bothered him. Many times, she said, he asked her to marry him, and they were in more movies together, including the 1980 follow-up to “Smokey and the Bandit.”

The couple broke up, in part because she thought he wasn’t really interested in getting married, according to the New York Times. In addition, she said he started using Percodan, Valium, and barbiturates on a daily basis, which made her worry about his mental and physical health. He said he wouldn’t think about going to therapy, though, and ignored her worries.

Field’s career moved towards bigger, more dramatic parts as his relationship with her got worse. The first Oscar she won was for “Norma Rae.” The second one she won was for “Places in the Heart.” They weren’t together anymore at that point, and Reynolds’ career was starting to fade. It briefly got better in the late 1990s, when he was nominated for an Oscar for supporting actor for his role as a fatherly adult film director in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Boogie Nights,” a well-reviewed epic about the porn business in the 1970s.
Field said she was overloaded with “feelings and nostalgia” after Reynolds’ death. According to a release, she said, “Sometimes in your life, they are so unforgettable that they never go away.” They’re still alive after forty years. Thinking about my time with Burt will never leave me. His memory and presence will last as long as I live.

She told the New York Times that she was glad he would never read her book because it had things in it that made her angry, like how she called him controlling and compared him to her abusive stepfather.

“This is bad for him,” she said. “I was glad he wasn’t going to read it or be asked about it. He probably would have had to defend himself or lash out, which he probably would have done. I refused to hurt him anymore.