Sally Field said Jack Nicholson helped change the course of her Hollywood career after years of being shut out following The Flying Nun. Field said Nicholson saw her work at the Actors Studio and put in a good word that helped her land an interview for Stay Hungry in 1976.

The two-time Oscar-winning actor said she “couldn’t get in a room to audition. I couldn’t get on the list. They thought they already knew what I was. ‘No, thanks. We don’t want any of that.’” After The Flying Nun, which ran on ABC from 1967 to 1970, Field said the industry had made up its mind about her and that she had to push herself to get better if she wanted anything to change.

Field said she studied at the Actors Studio under Lee Strasberg, and that Nicholson saw the work and recommended her to Dianne Crittenden and Bob Rafelson. He called her an “undiscovered talent,” and Field said, “I worked at the Actors Studio for so long — and it was so hard — that Jack had seen it and the word spread.”

Stay Hungry, which starred Jeff Bridges and an early-career Arnold Schwarzenegger, became the turning point. Field said it marked the beginning of the change in her Hollywood career, and the source says it was the first interview she had since her 1965 TV debut Gidget. She later went on to star in Smokey and the Bandit, Norma Rae and Places in the Heart.

Field said the entertainment industry can be rotten and unfair, but she believed she would only move forward when she was “good enough.” In her telling, Nicholson’s recommendation did not create the career she wanted so much as open a door that had been locked for years. “So in some weird way, my theory was right,” she said.