AceShowbiz - Sally Field has stunned fans by going public with the alleged molestation she suffered as a child at the hands of her late stepfather, actor and stuntman Jock Mahoney.

The "Norma Rae" star touches on the childhood trauma in her candid new memoir, "In Pieces", claiming Mahoney, who married her actress mother Margaret in 1952, would often call her to his bedroom when they were alone.

"I knew (what was going to happen)," she writes in the upcoming book, according to the New York Times. "I felt both a child, helpless, and not a child. Powerful. This was power. And I owned it. But I wanted to be a child - and yet..."

Sally, now 71, explains the abuse stopped after she turned 14, but she only told her mum about the assaults shortly before her 2011 death from cancer.

Margaret Field divorced Mahoney in 1968, and he died in 1989.

"In Pieces" also includes stories of sexual misconduct involving two other stars - the first regarding a disturbing incident during her relationship with singer Jimmy Webb.

In the excerpt, Sally recalls once smoking a joint with Jimmy, only to awake and find him "on top of me, grinding away to another melody." She doesn't believe he acted with "malicious intent" as he was "stoned out of his mind," but Webb has denied any suggestion of improper behaviour, insisting he has "great respect" for the Oscar winner.

"Sally and I were young, successful stars in Hollywood," he shared in a statement. "We dated and did what 22-year-olds did in the late 60s - we hung out, we smoked pot, we had sex."

The other eye-raising incident reportedly occurred during Sally's audition with director Bob Rafelson, who is accused of demanding she kiss him in order to secure her role in 1976 film "Stay Hungry", which co-starred Jeff Bridges and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The filmmaker has firmly denied the allegations too, declaring them "totally untrue," adding to the Times, "I didn't make anybody kiss me in order to get any part."

Meanwhile, "In Pieces" also details her love affair with her "Smokey and the Bandit" co-star Burt Reynolds, who died last week, September 6.

The couple dated for many years after meeting in the late 1970s, but Field's soaring success drove a wedge between the stars, prompting them to part ways.

In Reynolds' 2015 memoir, titled "But Enough About Me", he had nothing but good things to say about his ex, and made it clear he still pined for her, insisting she was always "the one who got away" - but Sally reveals the romance was full of ups and downs.

"(It was) confusing and complicated, and not without loving and caring, but really complicated and hurtful to me," she told the Times.

She has since been able to draw similarities between their relationship and the one she shared with Mahoney as a young girl.

"I was somehow exorcising something that needed to be exorcised," she explained. "I was trying to make it work this time."