She was educated in Paris, Vienna, and the South of France,[2] and then returned to England, where she studied for the stage. In Vienna, she acted for Max Reinhardt, and on returning to Britain, she was given her first film role whilst in her teens in The Lady is Willing, followed by a Hollywood contract.[citation needed]

 

Field went to the U.S. to appear in David O. Selznick's Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936). In the late 1930s, she appeared in various parts in 20th Century Fox's Mr. Moto film series. Field played Kitty, a ballerina with Vivien Leigh in the 1940 film, Waterloo Bridge. In 1941, Field played Nell Gwyn in Hudson's Bay. Vincent Price was cast as King Charles II, and he wrote about the experience in his book The Book of Joe. "...I came up against my first animals, a whole litter of King Charles spaniels... But my competition was not the spaniels, who were indeed adorable, but the enormous bosoms of the young lady who played Nell Gwyn. They were of such robust and luscious proportions and her dress so low cut that in our big scene, in which we fondled the puppies on a great bed, she leaned over them so far that the censors cut the scene out of the picture."[7]