Sally Field, who long ago left television for a movie career that brought her a pair of best actress Oscars, makes her return to the small screen this weekend in the six-hour miniseries "A Woman of Independent Means."
Not that she's marking the return, exactly. To her, acting for television is no different from acting for movies. There's no sense of returning to her roots."I wish I could say yes. It would be such a great story," Field recently told television critics. "But, no, because the work is wherever it is. The work is all I relate to.
"I never really have a feeling of where it's going, of whether it's going on television or whether it's going in a movie house."
And, in this case, "A Woman of Independent Means" could not have been made as a theatrical movie. The miniseries, which airs Sunday, Monday and Wednesday at 8 p.m. on Ch. 2, follows the life of the fictional Elizabeth (Bess) Alcott Steed Garner as she ages from her early 20s to her 80s.
It's about her loves, her husbands, her children, her growing sense of self. It's about wonderful moments and terrible tragedies.
It's about a woman who, at times, seems to have everything in hand, but who makes great mistakes in her life.
"She's certainly not a perfect person. She's very flawed, and I like that," Field said.
And what Field found most interesting in portraying a character over that long span of years was "those little sort of adorable pieces of their personality (that) are now fully blown into idiosyncratic behavior, which started in their 20s and manifested themselves because of life or how they survived into their armor."
Playing Bess was a formidable undertaking for Field, who goes through 176 costume changes and a considerable amount of makeup. The actress's real age, 49, is almost right smack in the middle of the age range she plays - but one end of the spectrum was considerably harder than the other for her.
"The hardest part for me - the scariest part for me - was doing the young stuff," Field said. "I found that every time I looked in the mirror I (shrieked).
"The old stuff I loved. I loved exploring it. I found I have a love and appreciation, fascination for age. I guess I better at this point because I'm not going to go backwards."
She does, however, still recall her early days in television with nothing but appreciation. Field was but 17 when she starred in the TV sitcom "Gidget" during the 1965-66 season, and she spent the following two years headlining "The Flying Nun."
"I look back on it very fondly," Field said. "I have nothing to come to terms with.
"It's my history. Without that, I wouldn't be whatever I am today. It has been, obviously, a significant step for me in developing the person that is now Sally. I can't imagine where I'd be without it."
TOUGH TO TRANSLATE: "A Woman of Independent Means" is based on Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey's novel, but it took 18 years from the time it was published until it finally was translated into a film project.
Not for lack of trying.
"It was optioned (by filmmakers) constantly from the time it was published," Hailey said.
The the format of the novel proved a formidable obstruction. The novel is written as a series of letters from Bess to various people over the decades.
Field said she read "A Woman of Independent Means" when it first came out and loved it.
"For years it had been brought up to me in my production office. And I would say, `Can't be done,' " Field said.
Even when she was contacted by executive producer/director Robert Greenwald, she was skeptical.
"I subsequently reread it quickly, and I honestly felt, `Come on, this can't be done. . . . It's all letters. How can you do this?' " Field said. "It's so full of intricacies and yet it's so slight, really."
But Greenwald hired screenwriter Cindy Myers, who turned in a good script that retains a number of the letters from the book as voice-overs.
"I don't think I could have begun to do it myself," Hailey said. "I wasn't sure it could be done."
The author said she was "absolutely knocked out" by Myers' script. And, while so many novelists scream bloody murder over what's done to their work when it's translated onto film, Hailey couldn't have sung higher praises for the miniseries.
"As good as I thought the script was . . . I was still not prepared," she said. "To see it all on the screen was just overwhelming."
CASTING ABOUT: The cast of "A Woman of Independent Means" is impressive, and not just because of its two-time Academy Award winner. It includes Tony Goldwyn, who plays Bess' first husband; Ron Silver, who plays her financial adviser and another love interest; Charles Durning as her father; Brenda Fricker - winner of a best supporting actress Oscar for "My Left Foot" - as her mother-in-law; and Jack Thompson as her second husband.
And co-starring as Bess' granddaughter is Brooke Hailey, the daughter of author Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey.
Hailey based Bess on her own grandmother, and her daughter, Brooke, plays the character she based on herself.