Sally Field Recalls Her 'Real Life-or-Death Crisis' in New Interview

Sally Field ABC
ABC

In her first TV interview about her memoir, the renowned actress opens up like never before.

Sally Field is ready to share the ups and downs of her real life.

The 71-year-old actress' new memoir, In Pieces, will be released on Sept. 18, and in lead-up to her book hitting shelves, Field sits down with Diane Sawyer for an interview that will air in part on Monday's Good Morning America, and later on World News Tonight With David Muir and Nightline.

"Right from real life-or-death crisis," she tells Sawyer in a sneak preview of the interview.

According to the promo, Field addresses some of the topics in her book, including "childhood secrets," and what was "really going on" in her five-year relationship with Burt Reynolds.

The two-time Oscar winner also spoke to The New York Times about her memoir, and admitted that she was relieved that Reynolds, who died on Sept. 6 at 82, did not get a chance to read her book.

“This would hurt him,” she bluntly said of In Pieces. “I felt glad that he wasn’t going to read it, he wasn’t going to be asked about it, and he wasn’t going to have to defend himself or lash out, which he probably would have. I did not want to hurt him any further.”

The actress clearly has mixed feelings about her time with the late star. Field described their relationship to The Times as “confusing and complicated, and not without loving and caring, but really complicated and hurtful to me.”

The two first met on the set of 1977's Smokey and the Bandit and went on to co-star together in multiple films. They split in 1982 after several years of dating.

Field told the Times that with Reynolds, she was trying to recreate a version of her complicated relationship with her stepfather, stuntman and actor Jock Mahoney, whom she claims sexually abused her throughout her childhood. Mahoney died in 1989.

“I was somehow exorcising something that needed to be exorcised,” she said of her relationship with Reynolds. “I was trying to make it work this time.”

In a statement to ET last week, Field said she would never forget her time with the late actor. Here's more on the late actor:

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