In a recent interview with People, the actress opened up about one of the most emotional days she experienced while making “Mrs. Doubtfire,” recalling how her co-star Robin quietly stepped in after learning her father had died during filming.
Sally Field Says Robin Williams Immediately Knew Something Was Wrong
Field remembered being in San Francisco filming the courtroom divorce scene for “Mrs. Doubtfire” when she received a devastating call about her father’s condition. “My real father, who had been ill and I had put him in a nursing home, he had had a massive stroke at one point,” she recalled.
The actress said the moment forced her into an agonizing decision. After asking the doctor whether her father had passed, she was told, “No,” but that “his brain is not really functioning.” Field then asked the doctor to deliver one final message to him. “Please lean down, and tell him that Sally says goodbye,” she remembered saying before returning to work.
What made the experience even harder was the scene being filmed that day. “We are doing the scene about the kids being taken away from the father,” Field said, noting how closely it mirrored emotions from her own childhood. “It was what happened to my father. I was the divorce child.” Despite the shock of the phone call, she stepped back in front of the cameras and tried to continue shooting.
According to Field, Robin Williams quickly sensed that something was wrong. “Robin at one point pulled me over to the side,” she recalled. “He said, ‘Sally… are you alright?’” After she broke down crying and told him, “My father just died,” Williams immediately halted production.
“Robin turned around and said, ‘That’s it for the day, guys. We just wrapped here. We are done for the day. Get a few shots of the kids and maybe one of Mrs. Doubtfire, but Ms. Field is going home,’” the actress recalled. She said Williams personally walked her away from the set afterward. Remembering the moment decades later, she summed it up simply: “That was Robin.”
