The complicated fortunes of ’60s sitcom stars including Barbara Eden

Sally Field – Gidget

Before becoming one of Hollywood’s most acclaimed and adored actresses, Sally Field got her start playing a boy-crazy surfer girl on Gidget from 1965 to 1966. While the series was cancelled after one season, the network wasn’t about to let her charm go to waste. She landed a role in The Flying Nun in 1967, and was quickly typecast as a perky, wholesome and unserious young star, something Sally longed to break free from. 

That chance came with her role in the 1976 TV movie Sybil, which was so impactful that she won an Emmy Award for her performance, proving that she wasn’t just a has-been child star.

Throughout her career, Sally has earned two Oscars, two Golden Globes, three Emmys, and a Tony nomination, making her one step away from hallowed EGOT status. If anyone doubted her abilities after glancing at that resumé, they need their eyes checked

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Like many of her ’60s sitcom peers, her personal life has been a rollercoaster. After suffering abuse from her stepfather throughout her teenage years, she went on to marry Steven Craig in 1968, before their split in 1975. They welcomed sons Peter and Eli together, who both work in the film industry. Peter works as a screenwriter and Eli is an actor and director.

Sally also shared a tumultuous relationship with legendary actor Burt Reynolds, whom she starred alongside four times in Smokey and the Bandit, Smokey and the Bandit II, The End and Hooper. They dramatically split in 1980, yet dated on and off until calling it quits two years later.

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The Oscar winner married her second husband, Alan Greisman, in 1984, and they welcomed a son, Sam, in 1987. They went their separate ways in 1994, and Sally swore off marriage for good. She revealed on the Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus podcast in 2024 why it hadn’t worked out for her in the dating world.

“Several people that I was dating, or around, would say, ‘Why can’t you treat me the way you treat your sons?’ ‘Uh, because you’re not my son!’” she exclaimed in the interview. You tell ’em, Sally!

“I’ve just never been good at picking a person, a partner, to be with who would be loving and know me and not want to change me and also be challenging to me,” she added Instead, the icon channelled her energy into activism. She has staunchly supported women’s rights, gay rights, and abortion access throughout her life, and has raised the alarm about climate change for years. 

Sally was arrested in 2019 while supporting Jane Fonda’s climate change protests in Washington, D.C., proving that she wasn’t afraid to stand up for what’s right. In other words, she’s an icon!