Book review: Sally Field was a victim of Hollywood’s casting couch long before Weinstein….
Somewhere in the middle of this revelatory and emotionally powerful memoir by Sally Field, she unpacks a story that is a case study in what Hollywood’s casting couch was like, even for an actress who had already starred in two network series—Gidget and The Flying Nun.
Field’s career was in a lull after those two shows so she was incredulous and delighted to find herself auditioning (it was her first audition ever) for the part of a sexpot in Bob Rafelson’s film Stay Hungry. At that point, director Rafelson was a hot ’70s new wave director, and his resume included the landmark film Five Easy Pieces with Jack Nicolson.
Field got the audition for Stay Hungry because of a female casting director who believed in her, but Rafelson wanted no part of her. Still, he had to admit that she read for the part better than anyone else. As Field writes, “He had a hard time owning the idea that he’d be hiring the Flying Nun . . . and it was driving him crazy.”
Rafelson asked for one more meeting at his house. A housekeeper led Sally to his bedroom and was dismissed. He sat on the bed and “he told me to take my top off so he could see my breasts, saying since there was a nude scene in the film, he needed to figure out how to shoot me.”
Publication Date: April, 2012
Ken Auletta, author and writer, The New Yorker magazine, says: Paul LaRosa has written a poignant and funny memoir that stretches in an unstraight line from mean Bronx streets to the newsroom of the Daily News. Along the way, in snappy prose, he sprinkles wisdom about New York, the pull of peers and of family, the ambition and pride that propels a working class kid to succeed, and a portrait of the zany New York Daily ...