NEWSSally Field, 79, Painfully Recalls Being Sexually Abused by Her Stepfather as a Child: 'I Was Filled With Rage'
Sally Field first revealed the abuse in her 2018 memoir, 'In Pieces.'
May 7 2026, Published 6:40 p.m. ET
Sally Field opened up about using the trauma she sustained during childhood.
In an interview published on Thursday, May 7, the legendary actress, 79, reflected on harnessing her anger — which stemmed from being sexually abused by her stepfather — on the set of Norma Rae, the film that won her an Oscar in 1980.
"Being a little girl raised in the '50s and having a very complicated childhood with my stepfather and even my mother at times, I was filled with rage. Really filled with rage," she explained. "And it was working with [acting coach] Lee Strasburg that allowed me to begin to tap into it, to not let it devour me."
'Tap Into My Own Rage'
Acting helped Sally Field cope with her anger.
Shooting Norma Rae, “I asked [director] Marty Ritt, ‘How angry can I be here?’ He said, ‘How angry are you?’” Field recalled, in conversation with People. “And I said, ‘Angry.’ And so that was the first time I was ever really able to learn how to tap into my own rage on film."
The veteran actress has become known for her emotional roles, including 1984’s Places in the Heart (for which she won a second Oscar), 1989's Steel Magnolias, 1993’s Mrs. Doubtfire and 1994’s Forrest Gump.
'I Wanted to Be a Child — and Yet'
The actress was 14 when the abuse stopped.
Field first revealed in her 2018 memoir, In Pieces, that her stepfather, actor and stuntman Jock Mahoney, had emotionally and sexually abused her.
According to the New York Times, Mahoney "frequently summoned Ms. Field to his bedroom alone."
“I felt both a child, helpless, and not a child. Powerful. This was power. And I owned it. But I wanted to be a child — and yet," she wrote, per the Times' reporting.
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'He Could Be Magical'
She called her childhood 'very complicated.'
“It would have been so much easier if I’d only felt one thing, if Jocko had been nothing but cruel and frightening," she penned. "But he wasn’t. He could be magical, the Pied Piper with our family as his entranced followers.”
The sexual abuse stopped when she turned 14, Field told the publication.
Sally Field's New Movie Comes Out on May 8
Sally Field plays a widow who befriends an octopus in her new Netflix movie.
Field's People interview came ahead of the Friday, May 8, release of her latest film, Remarkably Bright Creatures, in which she plays Tova Sullivan, a widow who forms a friendship with an octopus.
Based on a best-selling book by Shelby Van Pelt, the story follows Tova as she works the night shift at an aquarium to help her cope with the loss of her husband and disappearance of her son.
