Steven Craig: Everything to Know About Sally Field’s Ex-Husband

Steven Craig is known to the public for one main reason – he was the first husband of Sally Field, one of the most respected actresses in American film history. They were high school sweethearts, they married in 1968 when Field was just starting her television career, and they had two sons together before their marriage ended in the 1970s.

The honest truth is that the documented record on Steven Craig is thin. He was never a celebrity in his own right, he worked in construction, and he has stayed out of public life for decades. This article sets out everything that solid sources actually confirm, and it clearly marks the points that remain unconfirmed.

Quick Facts

Who Is Steven Craig?

Steven Craig was a young man from Southern California whose life crossed with Hollywood only because of who he married. He and Sally Field knew each other as teenagers. Several accounts describe them as high school sweethearts, which means their relationship began long before Field won Academy Awards or became a household name.

Field attended Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, California, and she began acting professionally as a teenager. By the mid 1960s she had the title role in the sitcom Gidget, and from 1967 she played Sister Bertrille in The Flying Nun. It was during that early television period, when she was famous but not yet taken seriously as a dramatic actress, that she married Craig.

Craig himself did not work in entertainment. Sources that mention his job describe him as a construction contractor. That difference in their working lives is a key part of this story. One partner was on television every week and on magazine covers. The other worked with his hands, on building sites, in a world with no cameras. Many later accounts suggest that this gap in lifestyle and ambition made the marriage hard to hold together, although neither Craig nor Field has given a detailed public account of the split, and the exact reasons remain private.

Because he never sought fame, there is no reliable public record of his birth date, his birthplace, or his education. Websites that publish exact personal details for him are guessing or copying each other, and those details should be treated as unconfirmed.

Marriage to Sally Field in 1968

Steven Craig and Sally Field married in September 1968. One reference source gives the exact date as September 16, 1968. Field was 21 years old and in the middle of her run on The Flying Nun, a hit show that she later said she found difficult, because she wanted more serious roles than the light comedy parts she was being offered.

The young couple started a family quickly. Their first son, Peter Craig, was born on November 10, 1969, while Field was still working on The Flying Nun. Their second son, Eli Craig, was born on May 25, 1972. In a few short years, Craig went from a young construction worker to the husband of a television star and the father of two small boys.

Field has written about her early life and career in her 2018 memoir, In Pieces, and she has spoken in later interviews about not being good at picking a partner for herself. She has said she cannot imagine marrying again. Those are her reflections on her marriages in general, shared many years later, and they should not be turned into claims about private events that neither person has described in detail.

The marriage did not last. According to the standard record of Field’s life, the couple separated in 1973 and divorced in 1975. That timeline matters, because it means the marriage ended just before Field’s career changed completely – first with her dramatic breakthrough in the television film Sybil in 1976, and then with her Academy Award winning role in Norma Rae in 1979.

His Two Sons, Peter and Eli Craig

The strongest part of Steven Craig’s public story is not the marriage itself. It is his two sons, because both boys grew up to have notable creative careers, and both have spoken publicly about their father in interviews over the years.

Peter Craig, born in 1969, became a novelist and then a successful screenwriter. His novels came first, including The Martini Shot, published in 1998. His screenwriting credits include The Town, work on The Hunger Games films, The Batman, and Top Gun: Maverick, for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Peter’s memories of his father are the main source for what is known about Craig’s later life.

Eli Craig, born in 1972 and known in some records by his full name Elijah Craig, became an actor and then a film director. He is best known for directing the comedy horror film Tucker and Dale vs Evil in 2010, which won audience and festival awards, and later Little Evil in 2017. Eli married actress Sasha Craig in 2004, and they have two sons, which makes Steven Craig a grandfather, although details of his contact with his grandchildren are not public.

Field has often said her three sons – Peter, Eli, and Sam, her son from her second marriage – are the three things she is most proud of in her life. She has called them kind, loving, and productive people. That pride is shared ground, even though Craig and Field’s marriage ended when the boys were small.

Life in Oregon and What Peter Craig Remembered

After the divorce, Steven Craig’s life moved far away from Hollywood in both place and style. In a September 1998 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Peter Craig described his father as living on what he called a quasi-commune in Oregon. Peter said he knew early on that his mother was not like other mothers, and that his father, living that open Oregon life, was not really like other fathers either. He joked that his whole life had been full of extremes.

Peter expanded on that childhood picture in later interviews. He described spending time as a small child around the commune, barefoot and covered in mud, and then being picked up by a car sent by his mother. The contrast between those two worlds – a rural shared home in Oregon and a film star’s life in Los Angeles – shaped the writer he became. His fiction and his scripts often return to families under pressure and to people living at the edges.

Peter also recalled that when he left school at 16 after a wild period as a teenager, his father insisted he work, and arranged tough construction work for him. That detail fits the picture of Craig the contractor – a father who believed a boy in trouble should be handed real work. Peter later found his way to study writing, including time at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, but the construction chapter stayed with him.

Some recent articles also say Craig loved writing and read his own stories aloud to Peter when he was young. That point is reported in newer, weaker sources rather than in Peter’s major interviews, so it is best treated as possible but unconfirmed. What Peter’s own confirmed interviews do show is a father who was present in an unusual way – distant from Hollywood, strict about work, and living by his own rules in Oregon.

Life After Divorce and a Name Worth Clearing Up

Almost nothing reliable is published about Steven Craig’s life after the 1970s beyond his sons’ recollections. There is no confirmed record of a later marriage, a public career change, or any return to public life. He did not give interviews about his famous ex-wife, he did not write a book, and he did not appear in documentaries about her. In a culture where many people connected to stars sell their stories, that silence is itself a fact worth respecting.

Field went on to marry film producer Alan Greisman in 1984. They had one son, Sam, born in 1987, and they divorced in the 1990s. Between her marriages, Field had a well known relationship with actor Burt Reynolds, her co-star in Smokey and the Bandit and other films. None of that later history involves Craig, whose chapter in her public story closes with their 1975 divorce.

One confusion should be cleared up, because it appears often in searches. Steven Craig, Sally Field’s ex-husband, is not Stephen Craig, the former basketball player who married singer Marie Osmond. The names are spelled differently, the men had different careers, and they are two different people. Any article that mixes their lives together is simply wrong.

As of today, there is no confirmed public information about where Steven Craig lives or what he does. Readers who want certainty beyond the facts in this article will not find it in reliable sources, and that limit should be stated plainly rather than covered over with invented detail.

You may also read: Zinzi Evans: Everything You Need to Know About Ryan Coogler’s Wife

FAQs

Who was Sally Field’s first husband?

Her first husband was Steven Craig, her high school sweetheart. They married in 1968, separated in 1973, and divorced in 1975.

What was Steven Craig’s job?

He worked as a construction contractor. His son Peter later recalled doing tough construction work in Oregon after his father arranged the job for him as a teenager.

How many children did Steven Craig and Sally Field have?

They had two sons – Peter Craig, a novelist and screenwriter, and Eli Craig, an actor and director known for Tucker and Dale vs Evil.

Is Steven Craig the same person as Marie Osmond’s husband?

No. Marie Osmond’s husband is Stephen Craig, a former basketball player. Sally Field’s ex-husband is Steven Craig, a contractor. They are different people.

Final Thoughts

Steven Craig’s public story is short because his life was private, and this article has not tried to hide that. He was a high school sweetheart who married a young television star in 1968, worked in construction while she worked on screen, and became the father of two sons who grew up to be successful writers and filmmakers.

The best evidence about the man comes from his son Peter, whose memories show an unconventional father in Oregon who valued hard work and lived outside the Hollywood world. That, plus the marriage record, is what we truly know about Sally Field’s ex-husband – and it is enough to understand his place in her early story.

Featured photo: Sally Field – photo by Rhododendrites, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons