Sally Field Reveals How Robin Williams Helped Her After Father's Death

Mrs. Doubtfire was there for anyone in need — including Sally Field. In Vanity Fair’s retrospective feature on Robin Williams, Field revealed how the late actor helped her tremendously after her father died while filming Mrs. Doubtfire. “I never shared this story before,” she said.

Field recalled that she was in a trailer near the courtroom where the divorce scene was filmed, and her father was living in a nursing facility. “I got a phone call from the doctor saying my father had passed, a massive stroke,” she said. “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.’”

“I was of course beside myself,” she continued. “I came on the set trying with all my might to act. I wasn’t crying.” However, she said Williams’ instincts told him that she wasn’t doing well. “Robin came over, pulled me out of the set, and asked, ‘Are you okay?’ ‘Yes, why?’ ‘I don’t know, just thought [I’d ask] that.’ ‘No, I’m not, Robin. My father just passed.’”

Williams’ immediate response was, “Oh my God, we need to get you out here right now,” which the actor was grateful for. “And he made it happen — they shot around me the rest of the day,” she said. “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.”

Sally’s Mrs. Doubtfire Memories

In the 1993 film, Williams played a voice actor who disguises himself as an elderly housekeeper, Mrs. Doubtfire, to spend more time with his three children amidst his divorce. Field plays his estranged wife, who unknowingly hires him. Williams took home the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical, and the movie won Best Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy.

Speaking to VF, Field also shared happier memories from Mrs. Doubtfire, saying that Williams loved to improvise some scenes. “It was my task to simply respond to whatever he did, as a real person would,” she recalled. “I completely loved that stay-on-your-toes feeling. You couldn’t really see what Mrs. Doubtfire was on the page. It became its own life form primarily because of him.”

Over three decades after their film premiered and 10 years after his death, Field feels as if Williams is still with her. “I keep thinking of him as ‘is.’ He can’t have left; he can’t,” she said. “He’s still here. I feel him.”