Betty Field

About Betty Field

Who is it?: Actress, Soundtrack
Birth Day: February 08, 1913
Birth Place:  Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Died On: September 13, 1973(1973-09-13) (aged 60)\nHyannis, Massachusetts, U.S.
Birth Sign: Pisces
Cause of death: Cerebral hemorrhage
Occupation: Actress
Years active: 1934–71
Spouse(s): Elmer Rice (1942–56) Edwin J. Lukas (1957–67) Raymond Olivere (1968–73)
Children: 3

Betty Field Net Worth

Betty Field was born on February 08, 1913 in  Boston, Massachusetts, United States, is Actress, Soundtrack. Thespian Betty Field was born in Boston on February 8, 1916, the daughter of a salesman and his wife. Ancestors on her father's side were Mayflower colonists Priscilla and John Alden. Her parents divorced while she was still young and Betty eventually learned to speak Spanish while traveling with her mother to various Spanish-speaking countries during her childhood. Mother and daughter settled in Newton, Massachusetts, after the mother remarried. Betty's passion for the theatre was sparked during her early teens and by 1932 she was enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Art. She made her professional debut in a 1933 summer stock production of "The First Mrs. Fraser" and soon was cast in stage roles elsewhere. She even found work in a London theater production of "She Loves Me" in early 1934.Rather plaintive in appearance with flat but highly distinctive tones, Betty's Broadway debut came about as an understudy in the comedy "Page Miss Glory" in November of 1934, courtesy of George Abbott, in which Betty also had a minor role. Therafter she performed frequently in the comedy mold, and in the service of Abbott, with such delightful plays as "Three Men on a Horse (1935), "Boy Meets Girl" (1936) "Room Service" (1937) and "The Primrose Path (1939), and earning fine reviews for the last two.After seeing her performance on stage as Henry Aldrich's girlfriend Barbara in "What a Life" (1938), Paramount executives utilized her services when they transferred What a Life (1939) to film. The studio not only liked what they saw but signed her to a seven-year contract. Throughout the 1940s Betty appeared in a variety of leading ingénue and co-star roles. The important part of Mae, the farm girl, in John Steinbeck's classic Of Mice and Men (1939) starring Burgess Meredith and Lon Chaney was an early highlight, although it didn't provide her the necessary springboard for stardom. Part of the problem was that the rather reserved actress tended to shun the Hollywood scene (she still lived quietly with her mother).While performing for Abbott again on Broadway in "Ring Two" (1939), Betty met the show's playwright Elmer Rice and the couple married in 1942. Their three children, John Alden, Judith and Paul, would appear on occasion with their mother on the summer stock stage. Betty also enhanced husband Rice's plays "Flight to the West" (1940) and "A New Life" (1943), which were designed especially for her.Betty offered consistent, quality work even when the movies she appeared in met with less-than-stellar reviews. She was afforded the opportunity to work with some of Hollywood's finest leading men, including Fredric March in Victory (1940) and Tomorrow, the World! (1944), John Wayne in The Shepherd of the Hills (1941), Robert Cummings in Flesh and Fantasy (1943) and Joel McCrea in The Great Moment (1944). Tops on the list was her heart-tugging performance as the anguished daughter victimized by father Claude Rains in the classic soaper Kings Row (1942).She purposely did not renew her Paramount contract at this point and, following another sterling performance in The Southerner (1945), took a long break from camera work. Back on Broadway, she appeared in such distinguished plays as "The Voice of the Turtle" and her husband's "Dream Girl" (Rice also directed) for career sustenance. She won the New York Drama Critics Circle award for the latter in 1946. Her Hedvig in Ibsen's "The Wild Duck" was also critically lauded.An isolated return to Paramount to play what should have been a career highlight ended up a major disappointment,. While her Daisy Buchanan in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1949) had mixed reviews (some felt she was miscast and not glamorous enough for the part), the movie itself (which was extensively trimmed) and her underwhelming co-star Alan Ladd were also cited as problems. Still a marquee value on Broadway, however, she displayed great range in such fare as "Twelfth Night", "The Rat Race", "Peter Pan" (taking over for Jean Arthur), "The Fourposter" (she and Burgess Meredith replaced Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn) and "Ladies of the Corridor"Betty's soulful features took on a hardened, careworn veneer by the time she returned to Hollywood in the mid-1950's. Nevertheless, she had a "Field" day as a character player appearing in a number of drab, dressed-down roles. She lent credence to a number of fascinatingly flawed small-town moms and matrons in films, among them cream-of-the-crop hits Picnic (1955), starring Kim Novak, Bus Stop (1956) with Marilyn Monroe and Peyton Place (1957) headlining Lana Turner and Hope Lange. The stage plays "The Seagull", "Waltz of the Toreadors", "Touch of the Poet" and "Separate Tables" also accentuated this newly mature phase of her career.TV took up a large percentage of Betty's time in the 1950s and 1960s with a number of showcase roles. She continued at a fairly steady pace but without much fanfare (as she preferred). Divorced from Rice in 1956, she married and split from lawyer and criminologist Edwin J. Lukas before settling down permanently with husband/artist Raymond Olivere in 1968. Betty's swan song in films was a small, featured part in Clint Eastwood's Coogan's Bluff (1968) as a floozie type, looking noticeably older than she was. Mixing in such stalwart, brittle roles on stage as Amanda in "The Glass Menagerie" and Birdie in "The Little Foxes", she made one of her last theater appearances in the difficult role of the mother in "The Effect of Gamma Rays on "Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds" in 1971.Betty suffered a fatal cerebral hemorrhage in Hyannis, Massachusetts in 1973, just as she was about to leave and film The Day of the Locust (1975). Cast in the flashy role of "Big Sister", an evangelist, her part was taken over by Geraldine Page. At age 57, Hollywood lost a somewhat undervalued talent who enjoyed the work more than the stardom that often accompanied it.
Betty Field is a member of Actress

💰Betty Field Net worth: $15 Million

Some Betty Field images

Famous Quotes:

When Betty Field was first signed for pictures, conversation buzzed. "But she's not pretty," was the first objection. "And her mouth is too large."

Biography/Timeline

1934

Field's Broadway credits include Page Miss Glory (1934), Room Service (1937), Angel Island (1937), If I Were You (1938), What a Life (1938), The Primrose (1939), Ring Two (1939), Two on an Island (1940), Flight to the West (1940), A New Life (1943), The Voice of the Turtle (1943), Dream Girl (1945), The Rat Race (1949), Not for Children (1951), The Fourposter (1951), The Ladies of the Corridor (1953), Festival (1955), The Waltz of the Toreadors (1958), A Touch of the Poet (1958), A Loss of Roses (1959), Strange Interlude (1963), Where's Daddy? (1966), and All Over (1971).

1939

Field's role as Mae, the sole female character, in Of Mice and Men (1939) established her as a dramatic Actress. She starred opposite John Wayne in the 1941 film The Shepherd of the Hills. Field played a supporting, yet significant role as Cassandra Tower in Kings Row (1942).

1942

Field had to overcome obstacles early in her film career. A 1942 newspaper article reported:

1943

A life member of The Actors Studio, Field preferred performing on Broadway and appeared in Elmer Rice's Dream Girl and Jean Anouilh's The Waltz of the Toreadors, but returned to Hollywood regularly, appearing in Flesh and Fantasy (1943), The Southerner (1945), The Great Gatsby (1949), Picnic (1955), Bus Stop (1956), Peyton Place (1957), for which she was nominated for a Laurel Award, BUtterfield 8 (1960) and Birdman of Alcatraz (1962). Her final film role was in Coogan's Bluff in 1968. She also appeared on television series such as General Electric Theater, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Dr. Kildare and many more.

1956

Her first marriage, to Playwright Elmer Rice, ended in divorce in May 1956. The couple had three children, John, Paul and Judith. John became a Lawyer, but he died in a swimming accident at age 40. Her second marriage, to Edwin J. Lukas, lasted from 1957–1967. Her third marriage, to Raymond Olivere, lasted from 1968 until her death in 1973.

1971

Her final stage performances were in three productions at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 1971.

1973

Field died from a stroke on September 13, 1973, at Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis, Massachusetts, aged 60. (Another source says she was 55.) She was survived by her husband, Raymond Olivere, and three children.