For some actors, the job is more than a paycheck; they forge meaningful bonds with those they must work with for months on end. Sally Field and Robin Williams co-starred in Mrs. Doubtfire, and although the film was a comedy, Field endured the tragic loss of her father while filming, and Williams went the extra mile to help her through her grief.
Williams rocketed to national regard playing the titular alien in the ABC sitcom Mork & Mindy, who debuted on Happy Days. Branching out of solely stand-up, Williams, along with his then-wife Marsha, served as an executive producer for Mrs. Doubtfire, and did not hesitate to use his position to completely alter the filming process for Field when she needed support the most.
Sally Field mourned her father while filming ‘Mrs. Doubtfire’ with Robin Williams
77-year-old Field spoke with Vanity Fair of the ways Williams treated filming as something more personal than solely a job. Field was born to actress Margaret Joy Morlan and Richard Dryden Field, who served in the Army during World War II.
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“I never shared this story before,” shared Field. “I was in the camper outside of the courtroom where we were shooting the divorce scene. My father had a stroke a couple of years before, and was in a nursing facility. I got a phone call from the doctor saying my father had passed — a massive stroke.”
She went on to recall, “He asked if I wanted them to put him on the resuscitator. I said, ‘No, he did not want that. Just let him go. And please lean down and say, Sally says goodbye.’”
Sally Field reflects on Robin Williams helping her after she lost her father
“I was of course beside myself,” continued Field. “I came on the set trying with all my might to act. I wasn’t crying. Robin came over, pulled me out of the set, and asked, ‘Are you OK?’”
When Field explained what had happened, Williams’s first reaction was to tell her, “Oh, my God, we need to get you out [of] here right now.”
“And he made it happen — they shot around me the rest of the day,” she confirmed. “I could go back to my house, call my brother and make arrangements. It’s a side of Robin that people rarely knew: He was very sensitive and intuitive.”
This story came to light days before the ten-year anniversary of Williams’s own death by suicide in 2014; he was 63 years old.
