This was what she was happy he never got to read.
Sally Field’s memoir In Pieces came out today, and with it some very dark moments for America’s sweetheart.
Particularly sobering is the behind-the-scenes of her famous 5-year relationship with Burt Reynolds.
Related: Celebs React To Burt’s Passing
There was something off-kilter about the romance from the start, according to excerpts provided by DailyMail.com.
Sally believes Burt only picked her to star in Smokey and the Bandit with him because he was attracted to her — he outright told her their first meeting was going to be a date:
“By the time we met, the weight of his stardom had become a way for Burt to control everyone around him, and from the moment I walked through the door, it was a way to control me. We were a perfect match of flaws.”
She explains she was ready to be controlled, just like she had been by her stepfather who molested her:
“Blindly I fell into a rut that had long ago formed in my road, a pre programmed behavior as if in some past I had pledged a soul-binding commitment to this man.”
The two began a relationship that was “instantaneous and intense” though they were clearly never on equal footing.
Sally says Burt always wanted to talk about himself, and even on the second date gave her “not-so-subtle hints that he didn’t want to know” about her life before him, especially her kids or exes.
In fact, Sally says Burt was jealous to the point she was “terrified” of running into any man she knew while Burt was around:
“Burt would pinch my face in his hand, demanding I tell him who the guy was and what kind of relationship I’d had with him. No matter who it was, if I knew him well or only barely, I’d lie with my heart racing as though I’d been caught at the dinner table with pink lips”
She also says he never got along with her children, and she would have to leave them with her mother in the evenings when she went to see him.
Burt controlled her, she writes, as if trying to “housebreak” her; he made clear “what was allowed and what was not” and would “constantly snap as if I’d piddled on the floor” if she broke the rules.
Field wrote the effect this had on her was such that she “eliminated most of me, becoming a familiar, shadowy version of myself, locked behind my eyes, unable to speak.”
Wow.
Meanwhile Reynolds regularly cheated on her, something reported on widely in tabloids of the time. Sally says she tried to pretend but “knew it was all true” and “felt duped and a fool.”
She reveals the most awkward moment in their relationship was when she rejected his proposal.
Related: Burt Called Sally His One That Got Away
He drove to the set of Norma Rae (a role he openly did not approve of her taking apparently) on the last day of filming and surprised her with a diamond ring — none of which was her style.
She says after she declined he “didn’t speak” and she “didn’t know what to say other than thank you, awkwardly.” The two never did marry.
That was the beginning of the end as soon after Sally was going to Cannes with the film, which Burt called a “waste of time,” asking her “in a huff what the hell I intended to do there.”
They had a huge fight in which she refused to be bullied into not going and writes she felt “wondrously free” on the plane.
She went on to win the Palme d’Or for Best Actress, followed by the Oscar.
Get more of Sally’s side of the relationship in In Pieces, available now.
[Image via Universal Pictures/WENN.]
