Fields was born in New York to Patsy, her Jamaican mother and an African American father.
She played an unwed mother opposite Patty Weaver in the NBC television soap opera, Days of Our Lives.
Also during the 1970s, she played the abusive birth mother of Millicent "Penny" Gordon Woods (Janet Jackson) on the sitcom Good Times.
Rita Conway was J. Jonah Jameson's secretary, the same function as the black Glory Grant from the 1970s comics.
Fields was a consultant for The Parkers, Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century, Living Single, and was a dialogue coach for the film, Menace II Society.