Betty Field (February 8, 1913 – September 13, 1973) was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
filmFilm encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects....
and stage actress.
Field was born in Boston, MA. She began her acting career on the
London stageWest End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's "Theatreland". Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking world...
in
Howard LindsayHoward Lindsay was an American theatrical producer, playwright, librettist, director and actor. He is best known for his writing work as part of the collaboration of Lindsay and Crouse, and for his performance, with his wife Dorothy Stickney, in the long-running play Life with...
's farce,
She Loves Me Not. Following its run she returned to the United States and appeared in several stage successes, before making her film debut in 1939. Her role as Mae, the only female character, in
Of Mice and MenOf Mice and Men is a 1939 film based on the novella of the same title by American author John Steinbeck. It stars Burgess Meredith, Betty Field, Lon Chaney Jr., Charles Bickford, Roman Bohnen, Bob Steele and Noah Beery, Jr....
(1939) established her as a dramatic actress.
Betty Field (February 8, 1913 – September 13, 1973) was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
filmFilm encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects....
and stage actress.
Field was born in Boston, MA. She began her acting career on the
London stageWest End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's "Theatreland". Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking world...
in
Howard LindsayHoward Lindsay was an American theatrical producer, playwright, librettist, director and actor. He is best known for his writing work as part of the collaboration of Lindsay and Crouse, and for his performance, with his wife Dorothy Stickney, in the long-running play Life with...
's farce,
She Loves Me Not. Following its run she returned to the United States and appeared in several stage successes, before making her film debut in 1939. Her role as Mae, the only female character, in
Of Mice and MenOf Mice and Men is a 1939 film based on the novella of the same title by American author John Steinbeck. It stars Burgess Meredith, Betty Field, Lon Chaney Jr., Charles Bickford, Roman Bohnen, Bob Steele and Noah Beery, Jr....
(1939) established her as a dramatic actress. She starred opposite
John WayneMarion Mitchell Morrison , born Marion Robert Morrison, better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and has become an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive voice, walk and height...
in the
1941 filmThe year 1941 in film involved some significant events.-Events:Citizen Kane, consistently rated as one of the greatest films of all time, was released in 1941.-Top grossing films :-Academy Awards:...
The Shepherd of the HillsThe Shepherd of the Hills is a 1941 film starring John Wayne. It was Wayne's first film in Technicolor. The film was based on the novel of the same name by Harold Bell Wright.-Differences from the novel:...
. Field played supporting roles in films such as
Kings RowKings Row is a 1942 drama film, directed by Sam Wood, that tells a story of young people growing up in a small American town at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, beset by social pressure, dark secrets, and the challenges and tragedies one must face as a result of these hard...
(1942), in which she played a victim of
incestIncest is any sexual activity between close relatives irrespective of the ages of the participants and irrespective of their consent, that is illegal or socially taboo. The type of sexual activity and the nature of the relationship between persons that constitutes a breach of law or social taboo...
, although that fact was not readily apparent due to the heavy
censorshipCensorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the government or media organizations as determined by a censor.-Rationale:...
of the time.
Field preferred performing on
BroadwayBroadway Theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, is the theatre associated with the 40 large professional theaters with 500 seats or more located in the Theatre District, New York in Manhattan, New York City...
in plays like
Elmer RiceElmer Rice was an American playwright. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his 1929 play, Street Scene.-Early years:...
's
Dream GirlDream Girl is a play by Elmer Rice.At its core is Georgina Allerton, a young woman whose efforts to run a bookstore are undermined severely by her tendency to drift off into Walter Mitty-like flights of fancy on a regular basis...
and
Jean AnouilhJean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh was a French dramatist.-Early years:Anouilh was born in Cérisole, a small village on the outskirts of Bordeaux and had Basque ancestry. His father was a tailor and Anouilh maintained that he inherited from him a pride in conscientious craftmanship...
's
The Waltz of the ToreadorsThe Waltz of the Toreadors is a play by Jean Anouilh.Written in 1952, the farcical comedy is set in 1910 France and centres on General Leon Saint-Pé and his infatuation with Ghislaine, a woman with whom he danced nearly two decades earlier. Because of the general's commitment to his marriage, the...
, but returned to Hollywood regularly, appearing in
Flesh and Fantasy (1943),
The SouthernerThe Southerner is a film directed by Jean Renoir, based on the novel Hold Autumn in Your Hand by George Sessions Perry. The film received Oscar nominations for Best Director, Original Music Score and Sound. Renoir was named Best Director by the National Board of Review, which also named the film...
(1945),
The Great GatsbyThe Great Gatsby is a 1949 film made by Paramount Pictures. It was directed by Elliott Nugent and produced by Richard Maibaum, from a screenplay by Richard Maibaum and Cyril Hume based on the novel of the same title by F. Scott Fitzgerald and the play by Owen Davis. The music score was by Robert...
(1949),
PicnicPicnic is a 1955 Cinemascope film in Technicolor which tells the story of an ex-college football star turned drifter who arrives in a small Kansas town on Labor Day and is drawn to a girl who is already spoken for...
(1955),
Bus StopBus Stop, also known as The Wrong Kind of Girl, is a 1956 motion picture directed by Joshua Logan for 20th Century Fox, starring Marilyn Monroe, Don Murray, Arthur O'Connell, Betty Field, Eileen Heckart, Robert Bray and Hope Lange...
(1956),
Peyton PlacePeyton Place is a 1957 American drama film directed by Mark Robson. The screenplay by John Michael Hayes is based on the bestselling 1956 novel of the same name by Grace Metalious.-Synopsis:...
(1957),
BUtterfield 8BUtterfield 8 is a 1935 novel written by John O'Hara in the wake of the success of his critically acclaimed Appointment in Samarra. The popular novel was adapted into a 1960 MGM film directed by Daniel Mann, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Laurence Harvey...
(1960) and
Birdman of AlcatrazBirdman of Alcatraz is a 1962 film starring Burt Lancaster and directed by John Frankenheimer. It is a fictionalized version of the life of Robert Stroud, a federal prison inmate known as the "Birdman of Alcatraz" because of his life with birds....
(1962). Her final film role was in
Coogan's BluffCoogan's Bluff is a 1968 Universal film directed by Don Siegel and starring Clint Eastwood, Lee J. Cobb, Don Stroud, and Susan Clark. Eastwood plays the part of a young veteran deputy sheriff from a rural county in Arizona who travels to New York City to extradite an apprehended fugitive named...
in 1968.
Her first marriage, to
playwrightA playwright, also known as a dramatist, is a person who writes dramatic literature or drama. These works are usually written to be performed in front of a live audience by actors...
Elmer RiceElmer Rice was an American playwright. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his 1929 play, Street Scene.-Early years:...
, ended in divorce. The couple had three children. Field died from a
cerebral hemorrhageA stroke is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by thrombosis or embolism or due to a hemorrhage...
in
Hyannis, MassachusettsHyannis is the largest of seven villages in the Town of Barnstable, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. Also it is the commercial and transportation hub of Cape Cod and was designated an urban area as a result of the 1990 census...
, aged 60.