Sally Field.Credit: JC Olivera/WireImage
Sally Field is naming the classic Hollywood actor who spoke in a way that she just couldn’t understand.
During a recent visit to the Talking Pictures podcast, the Oscar-winning actress admitted that she had no clue what Robert Mitchum was saying whenever they spent time together on the set of their 1967 film, The Way West.
Field, who earned her first film credit as Mercy McBee in the Western, explained that she felt shy around her famous costars — which included Mitchum, Kirk Douglas, and Richard Widmark — and would often go sit in the dirt on set.
“Mitchum would sit with me, and I never could understand a single word he said,” Field recalled. “I didn’t know what he was saying! I don’t know if he was stoned or what, but I couldn’t string two words together. And I would go, ‘yeah, yeah,’ and [I’d laugh] and pretend I understood what he said.”
While she couldn’t comprehend his exact wording, Field said that she understood the feeling behind Mitchum’s comments and “that he was somehow accepting of me,” adding, “He was good to me.”
“The only thing that I understood that he said to me — and then I thought, did I understand that right? — he said, ‘You know, you’re one of us,’” she said. “And I went, ‘Well, okay.’”
Field admitted that she “didn’t really know” what Mitchum’s comment meant at the time.
“It certainly wasn’t overly sentimental or overly flattering. It just was a fact,” she reflected. “He said, ‘You know what, you’re one of us.’ And I just said thank you.”
It wasn’t until roughly two decades later that Field said his meaning became clear.
“In the early ‘80s, I had to join a table at the People’s Choice Award… And I went to sit down at this table, and Mitchum was across the table,” she said. “He was still alive — older, obviously — and he stood up, and we looked at each other, and he said, ‘I told you so.’”
When host Ben Mankiewicz noted how special it must’ve been to receive such a message of belonging from Mitchum at such an early point in her career, Field replied, “He was a wonderful, wonderful actor.”
The Way West was the only time Field and Mitchum shared the screen together during their respective careers. Mitchum died July 1, 1997, at the age of 79.
