Cheri's Reviews > In Pieces

”I wait for my mother to haunt me as she promised she would; long to wake in the night with the familiar sight of her sitting at the end of my bed, to talk to her one more time, to feel that all the pieces have been put into place, the puzzle is solved, and I can rest.”

Margaret Morlan, Sally Field’s mother, was discovered by a talent scout sitting in the audience at a Pasadena Playhouse, and she almost instantly had an acting career. She was 23 when her career began, and was modestly successful, she was probably best known for her starring roles in the 1951 sci-fi movie ”The Man From Planet X,” and 1952’s ”Captive Women” When Sally Field began to act in small school plays, her mother was her champion. And while this memoir includes stories of her experiences as an actress, like anyone else her life is more complex than that.

”My memories begin here, with the book, memorizing words, and the comforting smell of noodle soup… all connected to this world of women, and to the house where my grandmother lived as long as I knew her.”

Her grandmother’s house is where Field and her mother and her older brother lived after her mother left her marriage to her first husband, it was also where her mother had lived when she was pregnant with her first child while her husband was a soldier off fighting the war. Filled with generations of women, going back to Field’s great-grandmother, and great-aunt Gladys.

”All of them with wounds that wouldn’t heal because no one acknowledged they were bleeding, and yet each of them needing the other to be near. And that—I realize—is how this story fits into my life. These generations of women, weaving a pattern into a lifelong garment, unconsciously handed down from mother to daughter to granddaughter to me.”

Sally Field’s life off-stage, off-screen was nowhere near as simplistic as Gidget, or as fancifully silly as The Flying Nun. When her mother remarried, to Jock Mahoney, a stuntman, it wasn’t long before young Sally became the object of her stepfather’s sexual advances.

Acting became her way to channel all those feelings into something else, to transform them into something moving, lovely, something relatable on stage or on screen, and a way to safely separate herself from her own life and step into another’s shoes. Playing these characters gave her a stable, safe place to share herself with others. And with this memoir she transformed all of these feelings into something incredibly personal and vulnerable, putting her story into words for once, sharing her story which she kept hidden away for years, in part even from herself.

”When she found her voice, I heard mine. By standing in Norma’s shoes, I felt my own feet. If I could play her, I could be me.”

There are things she learns along the way, plenty of charming stories, a bit about her own relationships through the years, some lovely photographs, snippets of celebrity dating stories. But this isn’t a gossipy tell-all about other celebrities. This is, in part, an ode to her mother, who died seven years ago on Field’s 65th birthday, and also a note of gratitude for the therapy that playing those many complex character roles provided. It also offers introspective thought on the woman she is, the woman she was, and how her career has given her the unique opportunity to explore the woman who she wanted to become.

This memoir was seven long years in the making, written by Sally Field, after her mother’s death. I can’t imagine trusting anyone else with such a personal story… She writes beautifully, and honestly.

Her memoir does contain some Hollywood “tales,” in part as she pours through her old journals, and newspaper clippings from the past. Just thinking of the emotional energy it would take to relive some of those moments, to re-examine your feelings from all those years ago, I can see why it would take seven years to process.




Many thanks, once again, to the Public Library system, and the many Librarians that manage, organize and keep it running, for the loan of this book!