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Field got her start on television, starring as the boy-struck surfer girl in the mid-1960s surf culture sitcom series Gidget. She then went on to star in her best known television role, as Sister Bertrille in The Flying Nun.

She had several guest appearances, including a recurring role on the western comedy Alias Smith and Jones starring Pete Duel (whom she worked with on Gidget) and Ben Murphy, and the Rod Serling's Night Gallery episode "The Whisper".

Having played mostly comic characters on television, Field had a difficult time being cast in dramatic roles. She studied with famed acting teacher Lee Strasberg. Soon after, Field landed the title role in the 1976 TV film Sybil. Field's dramatic portrayal of Sybil, a young woman afflicted with multiple personality syndrome in the TV film not only garnered her an Emmy Award in 1977, but also enabled her to break through the typecasting she had experienced from television roles.

Field had a number of critical and commercial successes in movies, particularly in the 1980s. In 1977 she co-starred with Burt Reynolds, Jackie Gleason and Jerry Reed in that year's #2 grossing film Smokey and the Bandit. In 1979, she starred as a union organizer in Norma Rae, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress. In 1981, Field played a prostitute opposite Tommy Lee Jones in the South-set comedy Back Roads, which received middling reviews and grossed $11 million at the box office. In 1985, she co-starred with James Garner in Murphy's Romance.

She has had supporting roles in other movies, including Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) in which she played the wife of Robin Williams and the love interest of Pierce Brosnan, followed by the role of Forrest's mother in Forrest Gump (1994). She is only 10 years older than Tom Hanks, with whom she had co-starred six years earlier in Punchline.

On television, Field had a recurring role on ER in the 2000-2001 season as Dr. Abby Lockhart's mother Maggie, who is struggling to cope with bipolar disorder, a role for which she won an Emmy Award in 2001. After her critically acclaimed stint on the show, she returned to the role in 2003 and 2006. She also starred in the very short-lived 2002 series The Court.

Field was a late addition to the ABC drama Brothers & Sisters, which debuted in September 2006. In the show's pilot, the role of matriarch Nora Walker had been played by actress Betty Buckley. However, the producers of the show decided to take the character of Nora in another direction, and Field was cast in the role. She won the 2007 Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in her role as Nora Walker.

(wikipedia.org)