Sally Field reveals Burt Reynolds was jealous of her movie fame

Actors Burt Reynolds and Sally Field in the 1977 film 'Smokey and the Bandit'. Photo / Getty Images

Sally Field says her ex-lover, Burt Reynolds, was so jealous of her movie fame it stopped him attending the Oscars.

The actress, 77, had an on-off romance for five years with Reynolds – who died aged 82 in 2018 – in the late 1970s and early 80s after they met while co-starring in Smokey and the Bandit, and she has now revealed that, despite his stardom, he couldn’t handle her success.

Field tells in her upcoming book, 50 Oscar Nights, how Reynolds was furious about the attention she was receiving after her role in 1979′s Norma Rae.

She said she wanted to go to the Cannes Film Festival in support of the film, but he poured cold water on the trip.

Sally Field with Burt Reynolds. Photo / Getty Images

Field says in the book: “He said, ‘You don’t think you’re going to win anything, do you?’

She added: “He really was not a nice guy around me then”, and claimed he even refused to accompany her to the 52nd Academy Awards ceremony.

Sally Field, Yankton Hatten, and Gennie James in Places in the Heart (1984).

Field admitted she “didn’t know what to do” about not having a date to the ceremony, and ended up going with actor and comedian David Steinberg and his then-wife, Judy.

She said: “Then David said, ‘Well, for God’s sakes, we’ll take you.’ He and Judy made it a big celebration. They picked me up in a limousine and had champagne in the car. They made it just wonderful fun.”

Burt Reynolds starred in 1972's 'Deliverance'. Photo / Getty Images

The actress won the Oscar for best actress for her Norma Rae role, and picked up the same award again in 1985 for Places in the Heart.

Field has previously lambasted Reynolds, and told in a 2022 appearance on Watch What Happens Live he was a poor kisser.

She said: “It was just not something he really did very well … a lot of drooling was involved.”

Reynolds told in his memoir how he regretted failing at his romance with Field, and she also hit out at him in a chat with Variety, telling the publication: “He was not someone I could be around. He was just not good for me in any way.

”He had somehow invented in his rethinking of everything that I was more important to him than he had thought, but I wasn’t. He just wanted to have the thing he didn’t have. I just didn’t want to deal with that.”