Sally Field was born on November 6, 1946, in Pasadena, California, to actress Margaret Field (née Morlan) (1922–2011) and pharmacist Richard Dryden Field (1914–1993), who served in the Army during World War II. Her brother is Richard Dryden Field Jr., a physicist and academic. Her parents were divorced in 1950; on January 21, 1952, in Tijuana, Mexico, her mother married Jock Mahoney, an actor and stuntman. Her ancestry includes English, Irish and on her father’s side Italian from the island of Sicily. Field said in her 2018 memoir that she was sexually abused by Mahoney during her childhood.
As a teen, Field attended Portola Middle School and Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, where she was a cheerleader. Her class of 1964 classmates included financier Michael Milken and talent agent Michael Ovitz, while actress Cindy Williams was a year behind Field.
Field has stated that when she was seventeen she had an illegal abortion in Mexico, and was molested during it.
