Sally Field’s place among Hollywood’s finest was cemented with her electrifying performance in Norma Rae (1979) — the story of a small-town textile worker who finds her voice and fights for labor rights. The film earned her an Academy Award and global acclaim. But behind the triumph lay a personal and emotional struggle filled with self-doubt, pain, and even broken ribs.
Before Norma Rae, Sally Field was fighting her own battle — not against corrupt employers, but against Hollywood’s perception of her. Known mostly for lighthearted TV roles like Gidget and The Flying Nun, she was typecast as cute, harmless, and unserious. Determined to be taken seriously as an actor, Field saw Norma Rae as her chance to redefine herself — but the road there was anything but easy.
Breaking Free from “The Flying Nun”
In the mid-1970s, Sally Field’s career was in a holding pattern. Hollywood didn’t see her as leading lady material. “I was so tired of being dismissed,” she later said. “I wanted to prove that I could do something meaningful — something that mattered.”
That opportunity came when she was offered the role of Norma Rae Webster, a mill worker inspired by real-life union activist Crystal Lee Sutton. It was a role that required grit, endurance, and emotional depth. But while the script thrilled her, her personal life was working against her — in the form of her then-boyfriend, Burt Reynolds.
Burt Reynolds and the Battle Offscreen
Field and Reynolds were one of Hollywood’s hottest couples at the time, but behind closed doors, their relationship was volatile. Burt, jealous and controlling, didn’t approve of her taking the role. He told her, “No lady of mine is going to play a whore.”
When she tried to explain that Norma Rae was a film about dignity and justice, not scandal, he mocked her. “So now you’re an actor?” he sneered.
Reynolds’s insecurity cut deep. But Field pushed forward anyway, knowing the role might be her one chance to break out of Hollywood’s shallow mold. She poured herself into the part — physically, emotionally, and psychologically.
Reynolds eventually showed up on the last day of filming, proposing to her with a diamond ring. But by then, Sally had already outgrown him. She later recalled feeling nothing but discomfort. “It just wasn’t me,” she said. She turned him down, quietly saying, “Thank you,” and walked away.
Becoming Norma Rae
Determined to do justice to the character, Field immersed herself in the life of a Southern mill worker. She moved to Alabama and worked alongside real factory employees for weeks before filming began. “For two weeks, I worked in the mill every day,” she recalled. “The whole building shook. You got seasick from the vibrations. Two hours felt like eight.”
The film was shot in Opelika, Alabama, with locals cast as extras. The town had never seen a Hollywood production before, and the excitement was palpable. Governor George Wallace even visited the set. Burt Reynolds, predictably, did too — though more to check on Sally than to support her.
But while the locals adored her — describing her as kind, grounded, and “a beautiful lady who blended right in” — the grueling work took its toll. The heat, the constant machine noise, and the emotional intensity of the story left Field exhausted. In one scene, while resisting arrest, she struggled so hard that she cracked a rib. She kept acting through the pain.
The Real Woman Behind Norma Rae
The film was inspired by Crystal Lee Sutton, a textile worker from Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. Sutton’s courage sparked a union movement that changed labor rights in the South.
Born in 1940, Sutton started working in mills as a teenager. By her early twenties, she was a widowed mother of three, earning $2.65 an hour folding towels in stifling heat. Management treated workers like machines — overworked, underpaid, and disposable.
When she began advocating for a union, she was fired on the spot. In protest, she grabbed a piece of cardboard, wrote UNION across it, climbed onto a table, and held it high above her head. One by one, her coworkers turned off their machines. The room fell silent — a powerful moment of unity that would become one of cinema’s most iconic scenes.
Crystal Lee Sutton later admitted she had mixed feelings about the film. “It made me laugh and cry,” she said. “But I wanted it to be a real union story, not a soap opera love story. It should’ve been educational.”
Despite her heroic life inspiring an Oscar-winning film, Sutton received no payment for her story. After suing 20th Century Fox, she was awarded just $52,000 — half of which went to taxes. She used what remained to pay debts and buy a used Pontiac for her husband, saying, “He deserved something for standing by me.”
The Moment That Made History
The famous “UNION” scene nearly didn’t happen the way we know it. The real Sutton’s protest was spontaneous, raw, and deeply emotional — but the studio initially wanted to soften it. Director Martin Ritt pushed to keep it true to life, even though he admitted he “didn’t care much about labor unions.” His focus, he said, was on human strength — the story of an ordinary woman doing something extraordinary.
That scene — a small woman standing up to an entire system — became a cinematic symbol of defiance and dignity. Decades later, it’s still used in discussions about workers’ rights and feminism.
The Cost of Reinvention
Field’s journey to Norma Rae came at a personal cost. She broke free from the “cute TV girl” label, but also broke away from the man who tried to control her. Burt Reynolds couldn’t handle her independence. When she told him she was going to Cannes for the film’s premiere, he snapped, “You don’t expect to win anything, do you?” and hung up.
He refused to accompany her to the Oscars, where she ultimately won Best Actress. “I was terrified I wasn’t enough to hold an audience for two hours,” she later said. But when her name was called, all the years of doubt and condescension fell away. Her teary acceptance speech became one of the most memorable in Oscar history.
Thankfully, her friends David and Judy Steinberg stepped in that night to take her to the ceremony. “They made it fun,” Field said. “They had champagne in the limousine. I’ll never forget that kindness.”
Legacy of Norma Rae
More than forty years later, Norma Rae remains one of the most powerful labor films ever made. Field’s portrayal inspired generations of actresses — Meryl Streep in Silkwood, Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich — and helped reshape how Hollywood viewed women in film
But beyond the awards and acclaim, the film’s legacy is in what it represents: the courage to stand up, to be heard, and to refuse to shrink for anyone — not a boss, not a man, not an industry.
Sally Field once said, “Norma Rae wasn’t just a character. She was the woman I wanted to be — brave, unapologetic, and unafraid to say no.”
Her performance gave a voice to the voiceless and, in the process, set her own free.
Today, that cardboard sign reading UNION still stands as one of cinema’s most unforgettable images — a reminder that real change often begins with one person brave enough to stand on a table and say, “Enough.”