Sally Field is a proud mom to her sons: Peter, Eli and Sam.
Over the years, The Flying Nun star has spoken about her love for her children. In a speech at the 2012 Human Rights Campaign annual national dinner, Field said, “The three things I am most proud of in my life are Peter, Eli and Sam. My sons.”
The Oscar winner added, “They are kind and loving, productive human beings. Each very different from the other.”
Field shares her elder sons, Peter and Eli, with her first husband, Steven Craig, and her youngest, Sam, with her second husband, Alan Greisman.
The Forrest Gump actress was in her early 20s when she became a mom for the first time. Field told PEOPLE in 2023 that she apologized to her older sons for being a “young parent” while also recognizing how they motivated her.
“I had two little kids to take care of,” she said, “I didn’t have the luxury to throw my hands up and say, ‘Forget this whole acting thing — I’m gonna go and open up a boutique in Pasadena.’ My kids were fuel.”
Field added, “More times than not, they literally picked me up when I just felt crushed.”
Here is everything to know about Sally Field’s sons: Peter, Eli and Sam.
Field and her then-husband Steven welcomed their first child, son Peter, on Nov. 10, 1969.
“The very end of the second year of [The Flying] Nun, before the third even began, I was pregnant with my first child,” Field told PEOPLE in 2016, noting that her focus at the time was on “what was happening inside of” her.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Peter was shuttled between his mom’s movie sets and his dad’s commune during his childhood. When he was 28, Peter admitted to Entertainment Weekly that he knew early on that his “mother wasn’t like other moms” and that his father “wasn’t really like other dads.”
Peter said, “In a way, my whole life has been full of extremes.” Part of this lifestyle included events with his mom — in 1982, he accompanied Field to the 8th annual People’s Choice Awards.
Fueled by his unique upbringing, Peter became an author. According to his Hachette Books bio, he attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and wrote two novels in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Hot Plastic and The Martini Shot.
In addition to being a novelist, Field’s firstborn is also a screenwriter. Peter co-wrote the 2022 blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. He also co-wrote the screenplay for 2022’s The Batman and 2010’s The Town.
Field is supportive of Peter’s career, and he told Entertainment Weekly in 1998 that “being the son of a famous person is a curious and difficult thing, and I think [writing] might just be the best way to handle that.”
Peter is also a parent: He shares two daughters with ex-wife Amy Scattergood and a son with ex-wife Jennifer DeFrancisco.
Speaking to Oprah Winfrey in 2008, Field said, “My oldest son is this miraculously loving parent to his two little girls. When I watch him with them, I think, ‘Boy, I would have liked to have had comfort like that.’ “
The actress added, “They won’t have any trouble knowing how to love or be loved. To raise children who go on to be great parents is an accomplishment — that’s the Oscar moment in life.”
Eli Craig, 52
Field and Steven celebrated the arrival of their second child together, son Eli, on May 25, 1972.
Similarly to his elder brother’s career, Eli is a writer and director who worked on 2017’s Little Evil starring Adam Scott and Evangeline Lilly. He also directed Tucker & Dale vs Evil and an episode of his mom’s show Brothers & Sisters.
Eli married his wife Sasha, who played the Yellow Ranger on Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue, in 2004. They are parents to two sons.
Field told Winfrey in 2008 that her son Eli would say she had “been a good and loving mom,” but she hadn’t “done a lot of things well.”
The Sybil star explained, “It’s true; when he was grown, he told me that I didn’t discipline him enough. Can you believe it? I said, ‘I’d like you to try to discipline the kind of boy you were. You were absolutely uncontainable!”
Sam Greisman, 36
Sam, who was born on Dec. 2, 1987, is Field’s first and only child with her second husband, Alan.
The mother and son have a strong bond. Field’s youngest wrote a personal essay for PEOPLE in 2023 about his experience coming out as gay to his mom and opened up more about their dynamic.
“I’ve always been a momma’s boy — painfully, occasionally ashamedly so. Perhaps too obsessed with her,” Sam wrote. “Maybe it’s because I’m the youngest, by sixteen years. Maybe it’s because I was a shy little kid and my mom was a safe space; a hip I was attached to.”
He added, “Maybe it’s because gay men feel a certain undeniable affection for award-winning actresses. Who knows! Whatever it is, we have always been incredibly close.”
Sam shared that he grew up “so connected” to his mother and that he can trace his life through her career. He remembered their time in California while Field worked on Mrs. Doubtfire, the toy store in South Carolina where she filmed Forrest Gump and how she moved her schedule around for him amid Brothers & Sisters shooting.
She and her youngest son teamed up in 2019 to support the Equality Act as part of HRC’s Americans for the Equality Act campaign. Years earlier, in 2012, Field was presented with the organization’s Ally for Equality Award, and Sam introduced her at the ceremony.
“When I came out, she didn’t even bat an eye. In fact, she was overjoyed,” he shared from the podium. “Being gay was just one more thing she loved about me. She couldn’t be more supportive of me, if anything, I wish she was a little less supportive of me.”
Field memorably tried to connect Sam with his “Olympic crush” Adam Rippon in 2018.
In her remarks at the event, Field said, “He was always, always Sam. Glorious, smart, funny, sweet Sam. And finally at 20, long after he beat the crap out of his brothers at tennis and he knew more than anyone about basketball, at 20 he was finally able to stand up proudly and say, ‘I am a gay man.’ “
