In Pieces

by Sally Field

  For all the months that I’d worked on The Girl with Something Extra, even after the show was canceled, Steve had been camping in the lot while the house was being built, working alongside the contractor and his crew, taking ownership of it as the walls went up. And now, because I was no longer filming a series and hadn’t worked since then, and because no money was coming in but a great deal was going out, the boys and I had moved into the not-yet-finished house too. Which meant that Steve and I were both living under the same newly shingled roof. Although not together.

  And that’s where I was, holding those pages, propped up against the recently painted pale yellow wall, directly across from the fireplace and Peter’s artistry. I was sitting with my knees bent, feet planted on the bed, which was the same king-size mattress and box springs I’d carted around with me to five different houses in the past six years. My butt was snugly lodged into the permanent dent on my side, the side I’d always slept on no matter what house it was in. The slightly larger dent on the opposite side of the bed had held several different bodies over the last two years since Steve and I had unofficially separated, but more times than not, it stayed empty and haunted. The nights when Peter had an asthma attack and was struggling to breathe, he’d sleep nestled close to my side, never rolling toward his father’s phantom imprint. And I would spend those nights wondering if I should take the little boy to the hospital. I’m sure I should have, countless times. But I never did.

  I don’t look back on this time of my life with pride, don’t see it as a shining example of thoughtful parenting. I can’t recall a single moment when I stopped to worry about how my actions would affect my sons, didn’t wonder if I should consult a therapist to learn the best way to help them adjust to their parents’ living apart. I simply told Steve I didn’t want to be with him anymore, because that’s all I knew to be true. But when he was gone, I missed him terribly, even if I was seeing someone else—and I was always seeing someone else, as if I were making up for lost time. I’d long for Steve to come back, to be comforted with his familiarity, and when he was back, I’d want him gone again.

  Little Eli on the Chantilly construction site.

  In reality, it wasn’t Steve that I didn’t want to be with, it was me. I didn’t want to be the person I became when I was with him, didn’t want to lean on him because he expected me to, because he wanted me to, because he felt better when I did—or even because I felt better when I did. It seemed as though we were trapped in our childhood, like Dorian Gray’s portrait. We got older but our relationship never changed.

  It had been almost two years since I’d worked. Almost two years since I’d met with my business manager as he sat holding a slim file of declining bank statements and nonexistent pension plans, looking dumbfounded when I told him of my intention to turn down any television projects that came my way. Almost two years since he strongly advised me to accept the first offer I got, adding that, even if I was lucky enough to be cast in a film—which was unlikely—actresses got paid very little. It had been almost two years since I met with my agent, who flatly stated that only models were working in films, and no offense, but I wasn’t pretty enough, insisting that situation comedy was the place for me, a place where I had a real foothold. It had been almost two years since I’d fired them both.

  During those unemployed years, I’d tried to shake myself up, to push myself out of my own nest, to get stronger any way I could. Everything from doing six weeks of summer stock in Ohio to studying musical theater with a man named David Craig, who taught actors how to mount a song technically, not to be in front of it or behind it, but to ride it. And though he couldn’t give me the vocal chops I longed for, the skills a singing teacher might have provided, David taught me how to build a structure to lean on, like a tree where I could hang all my Actors Studio ornaments. Most important of all, he taught me, and countless other lucky actors, the art of the audition.

  Those years were spent in David Craig’s joyful classes—where I’d sit in a roomful of other terrified actors, taking chances, flinging myself into the tightly structured, poetic world of songs, learning when to breathe and in what meter—then running off to Lee Strasberg’s intense sessions, filled with exercises that were often emotional but abstract, many times performing scenes when the process felt intangible and undefined, when I couldn’t figure out how to use whatever tools we were being given. Until one day something changed.

  I’d been asked by a fellow student in Lee’s class to partner with her in a scene from a two-character play entitled The White Whore and the Bit Player. In it, two actresses portray two different aspects of the same character, and my scene partner—a beautiful blonde I didn’t know very well and whose name I swear I can’t remember—was to play the Marilyn Monroe–ish, whore side of the woman, whereas I was to play the nun. For obvious reasons, I didn’t especially care for this scene and probably should have turned it down from the get-go. But Lee expected us to participate in whatever work our classmates wanted to tackle, whether we wanted to tackle it or not. Because of that, I agreed to do it. In all honesty, I didn’t devote much thought to the performance, which meant my work was lazy—mistake number one. And because I’d been working with Lee off and on for many years, I’d developed a slight swagger, confident of my secure place with him—mistake number two. When I stepped on the stage that day, thinking I could fake my way through it, my work was a deadly mix of uninterested and uninteresting.

  After the scene, Lee spoke to my partner with patient, careful attention, then clicked the back of his throat a few times, looked laser-like into my eyes, and said, “Yes?” as though I were a stranger who’d come to his house uninvited.

  I knew the drill, therefore I threw out the standard “I was working on a moment I once had with my father.” And in reality, I had—very obliquely—been visualizing an episode with Dick for my preparation.

  Lee paused, and—making sure the whole class could hear—said, “When are you going to stop this shit?” I was stunned. I’d been caught and the rug I’d been so smugly standing on was being pulled out from under me. “I don’t believe your father was enough. I don’t think that moment with your father affected you very much.” He pronounced this with such finality, as if he had just said, NEXT. I was being dismissed. Without taking a moment to gather my wits (wherever they were), I started stuttering, explaining, defending myself, while Lee shook his head, preparing to move on.

  Suddenly, I jumped to my feet as if yanked by a bungee cord hooked in my brain, and began shouting through a gag of emotion, “Who the fuck do you think you are to tell me what I’m feeling? Who the fuck do you think you are?” Almost unable to breathe, I kept repeating the same sentences over and over.

  Lee never backed off or demanded that I contain myself. Instead he rose to his feet, becoming red in the face while he worked hard to be heard over my raging, hiccupping barrage of protest. “Listen to me, Sally,” he yelled. “You keep saying you want to be better, but you keep dancing around. I don’t see anything important going on in you.” Again and again he said the same thing while all the time I continued to spew, “Who the fuck do you think you are? You don’t know what’s going on inside of me…”

  No one ever talked to Lee like that. And from the edges of my awareness I could feel every other actor in the room scrunch down in their chairs, suddenly looking at their feet or placing their hands over their faces, while Lee and I dueled with overlapping monologues. Finally, feeling embarrassed and foolish, I crumpled cross-legged onto the stage, like a puppet whose strings had snapped, my head hanging limp from my neck as I tried to sop up the river of snot pouring from my nose with the sleeves of my sweater. The whole room was silent; no one moved as I stared into my folded legs, seeing nothing but loss. Lee stepped to the edge of the stage, reaching out for the boards as if to hold himself up (this couldn’t have been easy for him either), and when steady he said, “You keep saying you want to be better, that you come here day after day because you want to know ho
w to be a better actor. But Sally, listen. Where you want to be is where you are right now. And it has cost you a lot. You have tried to hold it all in. You must always be where you are right now.”

  And what the holy fuck did that mean? He dismissed the class and I quickly gathered my things, without once looking at Lee. I would never again meet his eyes in a classroom situation.

  Unable to understand what he’d said, I drove home in a blind blur, feeling betrayed and defensive and, most important, outraged. Furious for every moment in my life that I’d felt dismissed, discounted, or defined by someone else.

  Did I take my wounded dignity to the music and laughter of David Craig’s class? Did I whine that I’d become the victim of the famous Strasberg buzz saw? Probably. But it was soon after that, in April of 1975, that I received the script that I was now sitting on the bed reading.

  It wasn’t well written, and if telling an understandable story with believable, realistic characters was what I was looking for, then Stay Hungry wasn’t it. But none of that mattered. By the grace of God—and a casting woman named Dianne Crittenden—I had been included on the very long list of potential actresses to play opposite the always-dazzling Jeff Bridges, who was already a star. Even with the new and improved representation, my name had never been included on anyone’s list, so when Bob Rafelson’s office called requesting a meeting, asking if they could send me the script, I was as shocked as my agent, whose first reaction had been to ask if they had the right Sally Field—or so I was told.

  Oddly enough, Rafelson had been one of the creator/producers of The Monkees television series, though we’d never met roaming around the Screen Gems lot. Bob went on to direct The King of Marvin Gardens and Five Easy Pieces, both well-regarded films with a liberal peppering of Actors Studio faces, Jack Nicholson’s being one of them. I didn’t know it at the time, but my work at the Studio over the years had started some chatter, at least among the Studio members, and that chatter had filtered down to Dianne, which was one reason my name had been put on the list. The second reason was the fact that Ms. Crittenden happened to be good friends with Zohra Lampert, the wonderful actress cast as my best friend on the thankfully short-lived The Girl with Something Extra. Zohra and I had been together for all those months, both of us struggling to make the show better, times that usually ended in a tussle between me and my bouffant-haired co-star, John Davidson—who once accused me of having Helen Reddy up my ass. Lovely Zohra, whom I hadn’t seen since we wrapped, reportedly told Dianne that though I was well known, I was totally undiscovered. So my name went on her list.

  I really couldn’t tell what the script was about, but I knew my interpretation couldn’t be unclear and vague, even if the screenplay was. The character of Mary Tate Farnsworth was southern, and appeared to be uneducated, economically challenged, and physically inclined—a champion water-skier (sweet Jesus, another water sport). She was also sexual, with an open, easy, “no big deal” kind of sensuality, an ingredient that I didn’t own, or not on the surface at least. These were the specifics I had to work with.

  David Craig always said that most directors, or whoever was sitting in the casting chair, rarely looked for the best actor to play the part, but instead waited for the actual character to walk through the door. Only when an actor has created a vast and diverse enough body of work, with enough recognition attached, will they be given the opportunity to play a character unlike the very person that they appear to be. And even then, it’s rare.

  With that in mind, I knew my task. I had to be Mary Tate Farnsworth, not Sally Field reading for the role. They had to think that the work I had done in The Flying Nun and Gidget must have been one hell of an acting job, because in reality, I was exactly like Mary Tate with her “come here and fuck me” attitude. I had to undo what they thought they knew of me, had to prepare for the audition knowing that it would begin the minute I walked into Dianne Crittenden’s office. And that’s what I did. Wearing a pair of threadbare hip-hugger jeans and a red crop top, I nonchalantly sauntered into Dianne’s small room, stopping briefly to shake hands and flash her a quick smile. Hard to miss were the stacks of head shots scattered across her desk, photos of actresses with their résumés attached on the back, reminding me yet again that I didn’t have any eight-by-ten glossies to hand out. But for God’s sake, I never went on any auditions, so what was the point?

  I flopped into one of the two chairs against the opposite wall, slouching down until my butt almost hung off the seat, then began mindlessly snapping and unsnapping the top of my jeans. As I waited, fiddling with my pants, Dianne went in and out several times to inquire about the delay, always smiling at me with a little nod of acknowledgment. When she left the room for the fourth or fifth time, I knew that things were not running smoothly and I began to suspect that Dianne had put my name on the list without telling anyone else. Then, from the other room, the mumbled blur of a conversation got louder and more emphatic than it had been since I’d arrived, which by now was almost an hour before. I could hear a man—whom I assumed to be Rafelson—spewing aggravation, punctuating the end of a sentence with what I thought was my name. And when I realized that they were definitely talking about me, my pounding heart slowed. Using my newly acquired acting skills, I allowed my anger to fuel and not overwhelm me. I had a job to do and if I’d been a gun, I would have been locked and loaded.

  When the door abruptly swung open and Bob Rafelson—wearing goofy-looking aviator-like glasses—stood in its frame, I didn’t sit up. Like holding the reins of a bolting horse, I pulled back on the fury vibrating through me, remaining aloof as if I’d been waiting for a bus and this simply wasn’t it. He invited me to follow him into his window-lined office, where I entered to shake hands with Charles Gaines, who had adapted the screenplay from his own novel and who would be my scene partner, playing the Jeff Bridges character. Dianne, who had insisted over much objection that I be allowed to audition, quietly slipped in behind us to sit on the sofa toward the back of the room.

  I was directed to one of the two chairs across from Bob’s desk, where he now sat with his feet over the empty top. It’s not that Bob was rude, or cruel. He wasn’t. He was only distracted and perfunctory, like he was going through the motions as quickly as possible, which meant—thankfully—there was not much chatter before he nodded to begin. With script in hand, I said my first line of dialogue looking directly at Charles, who was sitting in the chair next to me. When he dribbled out a flat response, his eyes never leaving the page, I realized he was either the world’s worst actor or he didn’t give a shit… or both. I waited, without saying anything, staring right at Charles, who never looked up at me. With deliberate calmness, I held my script in the air, let it drop to the ground, then moved to the writer, who became completely befuddled as I tossed his screenplay to the side and straddled him. Now I had his full attention and with a titillated smirk he stuttered, “I don’t know the words.” Slowly lowering myself onto his lap, I replied, “Yes you do. If not, fake it.” The scene continued, but it was not the scene they’d heard twenty times before. Nor was the second one they asked me to read. And when I sensed they had run out of material, I grabbed my script, looked Rafelson in his now smug-less face, thanked him, then left the room and the building.

  The following week, I answered the phone one afternoon, barely hearing it through the grind of the cement mixer outside and the bickering little boys inside. It was Jolene, Rafelson’s secretary, or assistant in today’s world. After she gave me a quick greeting and asked me to “hold on for Bob,” I steadied myself, lowered my energy, and waited. He laughed when he came on the line, saying, “Well, we’ve now read every actress in this town and I can’t believe that you were the best. It must be because you’ve had more experience auditioning than anyone else.” I paused before telling him I’d not read for anyone since 1964. He went on to inform me that they’d honed it down to five girls, saying that none of the other actresses had read as well, but they all had the look he wanted: long legs a
nd long hair. My hair had grown out several times over the years, but then I’d cut it off again, so no. My hair was not long and my legs were never going to be long, no matter what I did.

  But even with my shortcomings, I had my first callback since I began in the business eleven years earlier, and when I sat in Dianne’s cubicle this time, I waited only a few minutes before being summoned into Bob’s glass office. Charles was now sitting with Dianne on the back sofa and Jeff Bridges was sitting in the chair across from Bob. Wonderfully alive, totally available Jeff, tall and quick to laugh, focused and fearless—I adored him the minute our eyes connected. I can’t translate into words what it was like, that time with Jeff. Instantly we met in a hypnotic out-of-body world, a place where there is no space between impulse and action, no guard gate at the crossings between strangers and intimates. It felt as if we were breathing through the same air hose.

  I don’t know how many scenes we worked on. Actually, “played with” might be a better way to describe it, because that’s what it felt like—the two of us, toying with each other, curious and experimental in an easy sensual way, a place I could never find in my real life. Or was this my real life? Was I there for twenty minutes or four hours? I don’t know. But eventually I was driving home, feeling I’d done the work I set out to do.

  Two days later, Rafelson called, perplexed. He was having a hard time owning the idea that he’d be hiring the Flying Nun (what a surprise) and it was driving him crazy. Plus he was leaving the next morning for Birmingham, Alabama, to scout locations for the film. He asked if I would come to his house that evening for one more meeting, and even though an alert went off in my head, I tucked it away with all the other pieces of me that didn’t belong to M. T. Farnsworth.