Taking A Stand

On the 40th anniversary of the film Norma Rae, sally field looks back on the Oscar-winning role that helped her find her voice.

- Jennifer Ferrise

Before I got the part in Norma Rae, I wasn’t politically minded. I knew a little about unions, but only in the context of my own, the Screen Actors Guild, which I’d been a member of since I was 17. And even then, I was only barely aware of how important the guild was, and is, to a working actor. I had zero idea of what was going on outside my own world. Then I met director Marty Ritt. He was always considered an important voice in the industry, and his best films were centered around the struggles of ordinary working-class people. Having been blacklisted from Hollywood in the ’50s, he felt strongly about the right of the individual worker to have a voice, to have collective bargaining.