Sally Field revealed why her ex-boyfriend Burt Reynolds did not attend the 1980 Oscars with her.
On what would become one of the biggest nights of her life, actress Sally Field was missing one important person: her then-boyfriend Burt Reynolds.
In Dave Karger’s upcoming book 50 Oscar Nights, Field recalls the 52nd Academy Awards ceremony, which took place in 1980. According to her, Reynolds, whom she was dating at the time, “was not happy” with all the attention she was getting for her leading role in Norma Rae.
“He did not want me to go to Cannes [Film Festival] at all,” Field says in the book, per People. “He said, ‘You don’t think you’re going to win anything, do you?’”
She adds, “When the Oscars came around, he really was not a nice guy around me then and was not going to go with me.”
Fortunately, Field did not have to attend the event completely dateless. While she “didn’t know what to do” when Reynolds declined to be her plus-one, actor and comedian David Steinberg and his then-wife Judy were there to celebrate the star’s first Academy Award win for Best Actress.
