HOLLYWOOD, CA – Actress and director Sondra Locke, who co-starred in six films with Clint Eastwood, has died. She was 74.
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Locke was nominated for an Academy Award for her first film role in the 1968 movie “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.” She died Nov. 3 at her Los Angeles home of cardiac arrest stemming from breast and bone cancer. Authorities were notified at the time, but her death was not publicized until this week. It is not clear why it took nearly six weeks to come to light.
Locke was best known for the six films she made with Eastwood, whom she dated for 13 years, starting with the Western “The Outlaw Josey Wales” in 1976 and ending with the Dirty Harry movie “Sudden Impact” in 1983, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Born Sandra Louise Smith, she would later take on a stepfather’s last name and the stage name Sondra. Locke grew up in Tennessee, where she worked at a radio station and appeared in a handful of plays before winning a nationwide talent search in 1967 to be cast opposite leading man Alan Arkin in the movie adaptation of Carson McCullers’ 1940 novel “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.”
Locke had a run of unmemorable film and TV roles until meeting Eastwood on the set of “Josey Wales,” which he directed and starred in.
Her career would mirror his for the next several years. The pair’s hit films also included the 1978 street-fighting and orangutan comedy “Every Which Way But Loose” and its 1980 sequel “Any Which Way You Can.”
Locke also played singer Rosemary Clooney in a 1982 TV biopic, and directed the 1986 film “Ratboy,” which flopped in the U.S. but was popular with critics in Europe.
In 1989, Locke’s charmed life came to an end as Eastwood broke up with her, she later wrote, according to The Times. The locks were changed and her things were placed outside a home she thought had been a gift from Eastwood.
She sued Eastwood for palimony then later sued him for fraud saying a movie development deal he arranged for her was a sham to get her to drop the palimony suit. They settled the highly publicized lawsuit for an undisclosed amount during jury deliberations in 1996.
Locke married actor Gordon Anderson in 1967. According to her death certificate, the two were still legally married when she died, and he was the person who reported her death. She described their relationship to the AP in 1997 as just good friends.
City News Service contributed to this post; Photo courtesy of Getty Images: 09/11/96 Hollywood, Ca. Sandra Locke appearing in court today battling former boyfriend Clint Eastwood.