When people search for Richard Dryden Field, they are usually trying to understand the family story behind one of Hollywood’s most celebrated actresses — Sally Field. But there is an immediate complication: two people share this exact name. A father and a son, living very different lives, both carrying the same full name.
This article focuses on Richard Dryden Field Sr. — who he was, where he came from, his military service, his marriage to actress Margaret Field, and how Sally Field fits into his family story. It also explains why he should not be confused with his son, who followed a completely different path in life.
Two People, One Name — Sr. vs. Jr.
The most important thing to get clear from the start is the distinction between father and son.
Richard Dryden Field Sr. (1914–1993) was the biological father of actress Sally Field. He is the subject of this article. Richard Dryden Field Jr. (born 1944) is his son — a physicist and emeritus professor at the University of Florida. He is not a celebrity figure.
If you search the name online, results can easily mix the two together. Wikipedia’s entry for “Richard D. Field” covers the son, the physicist. The father is less documented in formal reference sources and appears mainly through genealogy records and local-history writing.
In a published personal essay titled Me, My Family, and Feynman, Richard Dryden Field Jr. confirms his own name, his birth in Pasadena on April 13, 1944, and notes that his father was away on military duty at the time. That account helps establish both men as real, separate individuals — and makes the overlap traceable through published material.
Early Life in Pennsylvania
Richard Dryden Field Sr. was born on December 26, 1914, in Bradford, Pennsylvania. Genealogy records identify his parents as Fleet Folsom Field and Jane Elizabeth Fox. He was one of four siblings.
The family later lived in Titusville and then Warren, Pennsylvania. A 2019 local-history article from NWPA Stories reports that he attended Warren High School, where he served as class president, participated in sports, and was voted the most popular boy in his graduating class. These details come from a secondary local-history source and are not independently verified, so they are best treated as reported rather than confirmed fact.
What the available records do show clearly is that he grew up in northwestern Pennsylvania before eventually making his way to California — a move that would shape the rest of his adult life.
Military Service and the Move to California
Records indicate that Richard Dryden Field Sr. registered for military service in 1942. According to the NWPA Stories local-history account, he served overseas in the U.S. Army from December 24, 1943, to November 14, 1945.
His son Richard Jr. was born in Pasadena in April 1944 — during the period his father was reportedly stationed overseas. This detail is confirmed in Richard Jr.’s own personal essay, which notes that his father was away during the war at the time of his birth.
No specific rank, unit, or combat details are confirmed in available public sources, so none will be stated here. What the military timeline does explain is how the Field family came to be based in California. By the time the war ended and Richard returned, the family’s life was already rooted on the West Coast.
His Marriage to Margaret Field and Their Children
Genealogy records place his marriage to Margaret Joy Morlan on April 4, 1942, in Las Vegas Township, Nevada. Margaret was an actress who worked professionally under the name Margaret Field. The two married just before his military registration that same year.
Together, they had two children:
- Richard Dryden Field Jr., born April 13, 1944, in Pasadena, California
- Sally Margaret Field, born November 6, 1946, in Pasadena, California
The marriage later ended in divorce. After the separation, Sally Field was raised primarily by her mother and her mother’s subsequent husband, stunt performer and actor Jock Mahoney. Richard Dryden Field Sr. remained a largely private figure after the marriage ended, and available sources do not document the nature of his relationship with his children following the divorce.
It is worth noting that Sally Field went on to become one of the most recognized actresses in American film and television history — winning two Academy Awards for Best Actress, for Norma Rae (1979) and Places in the Heart (1984), among many other honors. Her father’s name enters public discussion mainly through the lens of her family background.
Later Life and Work
After his marriage to Margaret Field ended, family-history records identify a later marriage to Peggy Eileen Walker on July 1, 1955, in Los Angeles. The exact details of his later personal life are not consistently documented across authoritative sources.
Local-history and genealogy sources suggest that he later worked as a pharmacist, though the full timeline of his career is not clearly established in the available public record. These details should be understood as reported rather than fully verified.
Richard Dryden Field Sr. was never a public figure in the entertainment industry or any other public-facing field. His relevance to most readers today comes almost entirely from his connection to Sally Field and, to a lesser extent, from being the father of physicist Richard Dryden Field Jr.
For anyone researching celebrity family histories and biographies, resources like BusinessVerb can provide useful context around names and public figures that intersect with broader cultural stories.
Death and Burial
Richard Dryden Field Sr. died on April 30, 1993, in Los Angeles County, California. FamilySearch records list his burial at Woodlawn Cemetery in Santa Monica. Some secondary sources describe his death location as Pasadena, but Los Angeles County is the better-supported description based on available records.
He was 78 years old at the time of his death.
Why His Name Still Comes Up
Richard Dryden Field Sr. lived a quiet life by most measures. He was not a performer, a politician, or a public personality. But his name continues to surface for a straightforward reason: he was Sally Field’s father, and people interested in her life and background naturally look into her family history.
His family line connects a corner of northwestern Pennsylvania to one of Hollywood’s most enduring careers. That alone makes his story worth understanding clearly — especially when the name confusion around his son adds another layer of complexity to the search.
Here is a simple timeline to keep the facts organized:
- 1914: Born in Bradford, Pennsylvania
- 1942: Married Margaret Joy Morlan; registered for military service
- 1943–1945: Reported overseas U.S. Army service
- 1944: Son Richard Dryden Field Jr. born in Pasadena
- 1946: Daughter Sally Field born in Pasadena
- 1955: Later marriage to Peggy Eileen Walker recorded in Los Angeles
- 1993: Died in Los Angeles County, California
The Takeaway
Richard Dryden Field Sr. is best understood as a family-history subject, not a celebrity in his own right. He grew up in Pennsylvania, served in the U.S. Army during World War II, married an actress, and fathered two children who each made names for themselves in very different worlds — one in Hollywood, one in physics.
If you came to this article looking for Sally Field’s father, this is him. If your search returned information about a physicist at the University of Florida, that is his son. The two are related but distinct, and keeping that distinction clear is the first step to understanding either one of them accurately.
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