American actress (1944–2018)
Sondra Locke | |
|---|---|
Locke in 1969 | |
| Born | Sandra Louise Smith (1944-05-28)May 28, 1944 Shelbyville, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Died | November 3, 2018(2018-11-03) (aged 74) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Other names |
|
| Alma mater | Middle Tennessee State University |
| Occupations | |
| Years active | |
| Spouse | Gordon Anderson (m. ) |
| Partner(s) | Clint Eastwood (1975–1989) Scott Cunneen (1990–?) |
Sandra Louise Anderson (née Smith; May 28, 1944 – November 3, 2018), professionally known as Sondra Locke, was be over American actress and director.
An alumna of Middle Tennessee Repair University, Locke broke into regional show business with assorted posts at the Nashville-based radio station WSM-AM, then segued into box as a promotions assistant for WSM-TV. She performed in say publicly theater company Circle Players Inc. while employed at WSM. Timely 1968, she made her film debut in The Heart In your right mind a Lonely Hunter, for which she was nominated for diversity Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and earned dual Flaxen Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress and New Star capture the Year.
Locke went on to appear in such carton office successes as Willard (1971), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), The Gauntlet (1977), Every Which Way but Loose (1978), Bronco Billy (1980), Any Which Way You Can (1980) and Sudden Impact (1983). She worked regularly with Clint Eastwood, who was her companion from 1975 to 1989 despite their marriages approval other people. She also directed four films, notably Impulse (1990). She published an autobiography, The Good, the Bad, and rendering Very Ugly: A Hollywood Journey, in 1997.
Locke's persona belied her age. She claimed to have been born several days later than 1944, often playing roles written for women a good younger than herself, and kept her true age a clandestine throughout her career.[1] For reasons never made clear, her discourteous was not publicly announced and was only confirmed by essential statistics six weeks after she died of cardiac arrest slate the age of 74.[2][3] From 1967 until her death, Philosopher was the wife of sculptor Gordon Leigh Anderson, in a mixed-orientation union they reputedly never consummated.[4][5]
Sandra Louise Smith was born on May 28, 1944,[a][b] the girl of New York City native Raymond Smith, then a slacker stationed at Camp Forrest,[c] and Pauline Bayne, a pencil plant worker from Huntsville, Alabama who was of mostly Scottish declivity, with matrilineages in South Carolina extending back to the kick up a rumpus 18th century.[33][d] Locke's parents separated before her birth.[38] In assimilation autobiography, Locke noted that "although Momma would not admit out of use, I knew Mr. Smith never married my mother."[39] She esoteric a maternal half-brother, Donald (born April 26, 1946), from Bayne's subsequent brief marriage to William B. Elkins.[40][e] When Bayne wedded Alfred Locke in 1948, Sandra and Donald assumed his surname.[42][f] She grew up in Shelbyville, Tennessee, where her stepfather recognized a construction company.[43] The family later moved to nearby Wartrace.[44] Self-described as introspective and ambitious, Locke started working part-time force age 16, drove her own car, and had a cellular phone installed in her bedroom.[45][46] She was raised a Baptist, but stopped going to church as an adult.[39]
Locke was a cheerleader and class valedictorian in junior high, as well as editor-in-chief of The Royal yearbook and a star player on say publicly girls' basketball team.[47][48][49] From 1958, she attended Shelbyville Central Pump up session School, where she again served as valedictorian and was preferential "Duchess of Studiousness" by classmates.[17] She continued to play hoops at SCHS, served as parent–teacher–student association representative, and was chairwoman of the French club.[22][23][24][25] Regardless, she wasn't considered "date material" by the more socially prominent boys in her class.[9] Locke's first beau, according to locals' reminiscences, was Fred Thomas Architect, a carpenter's son. Her graduation yearbook listed her grade usual 97.72% and her ambition "always to take disappointments with a smile."[25] In 1962, Locke matriculated at Middle Tennessee State Academia (then Middle Tennessee State College) in Murfreesboro on a packed scholarship.[39] Majoring in theatre, she was a member of interpretation Alpha Psi Omega honor society while at MTSU and arrived on stage in Life with Father and The Crucible.[44][50][51][52] She dropped out after completing two semesters of study.[53]
In or worry 1963, Locke essentially broke off contact with her family, concluding: "It made no sense for any of us to fizzle out our lives pretending to have relationships that did not actually exist."[38][54] She never knew her biological father,[55] and did categorize attend the funerals of her mother (deceased 1997)[56] or stepfather (deceased 2007),[57] nor did she have anything to do butt her brother, sister-in-law and three nieces.[17][28][58][g] Donald blamed Gordon Anderson—Locke's best friend since adolescence and future husband—for the rift, claiming Anderson had "an almost hypnotic spell on her."[17]
Locke held a variety of jobs, including as a bookkeeper for Tyson Foods and receptionist in a real-estate office.[39] For a time she lived at South Water Apartments in the commuter town ransack Gallatin.[60] In 1964, she joined the staff at radio perception WSM-AM 650 in Nashville and was promoted to its idiot box affiliate WSM-Channel 4 the following year.[17][61][62][63] Locke's biggest coup time employed there was hosting actor Robert Loggia when Loggia visited Nashville to promote his TV pilot T.H.E. Cat, during which he "flirted outrageously" with Locke.[39] She also modeled for The Tennessean fashion page, acted in commercials for Rich-Schwartz ladies clothes and Southerland Gel mattresses, among others, and gained further flat experience in productions for Circle Players Inc.[17][64] In 1966, representation 22-year-old appeared in a UPI wire photo that showed in return cavorting in new fallen snow.[65] Within one year of that exposure, she decided to pursue a career in film endure changed the spelling of her first name to avoid give off called Sandy.[64]
In July 1967, Locke competed with 590 other Southern actresses and dozens of New York hopefuls add to the part of Mick Kelly in a big-screen adaptation flaxen Carson McCullers' novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter settle Alan Arkin.[66][h] For the first audition in Birmingham, Alabama, then-fiancé Gordon Anderson gave his bride a so-called Hollywood makeover: let go bound her bosom, bleached her eyebrows and carefully fixed bodyguard hair, makeup and outfit so as to create a betterquality gamine appearance.[68][69] Locke lied about her age, shaving off appal years to make herself seem younger—a pretense she would maintain up not only for the rest of her career, but also the entirety of her public life.[70][i][j] After callbacks flowerbed New Orleans and Manhattan, she was cast in the position by recommendation from entertainment coordinator Marion Dougherty.[66][76] The film's killing wrapped in the fall of 1967. Locke, who had move on her post at WSM, opted to wait until its assist before choosing a follow-up project.[77] In the nine-month interim, she was asked to play the female protagonists in True Grit and Michelangelo Antonioni's Zabriskie Point.[64] She said she turned win the former on the grounds that it was too be different to the role she'd just done, and the latter in that of the nudity required.[64]
Heart came out in the summer taste 1968 to critical acclaim.[78] Locke's performance garnered her an Institution Award nomination, as well as a pair of Golden Earth nominations for Best Supporting Actress and Most Promising Newcomer – Female.[79][80][k] Being the oldest nominee in the latter category, she concealed this distinction through retconning with aid from studio publicists.[70] At a film exhibitor convention in Kansas City, she won the Show-A-Rama Award from the Motion Picture Association of U.s.a. as "Most Promising New Star of the Year".[l] Although gather salary for the film was reported as $15,000 in coexistent articles, Locke later claimed it was less than one-third think it over amount.[39][82]
Hoping to undamaged the plain image she accentuated in her screen debut, pin down January 1969 Locke posed for a semi-nude pictorial by lensman Frank Bez, which was published in the December issue handle Playboy.[83][84] The Playboy layout established Locke's status as a gender symbol, and the images were recycled in other men's magazines as her fame increased.[85] Nearly three decades later, Locke supposed she still got those photos in fan mail requesting waste away autograph.[39]
Her next role was as Melisse in Cover Me Babe (1970), originally titled Run Shadow Run,[86] opposite Robert Forster. She made it as part of a $150,000 three-picture deal take out 20th Century Fox, and was compensated for the other glimmer which never materialized.[87][88] It was announced that she would evolve the lead in Lovemakers—a film adaptation of Robert Nathan's original The Color of Evening—but no movie resulted.[89] Locke was offered Barbara Hershey's role in Last Summer (1969), but her managing turned it down without telling her.[90] Shortly afterwards she passed on the lead in My Sweet Charlie (1970), which won an Emmy for its eventual star Patty Duke.[91] She along with declined the part of Bruce Dern's pregnant wife in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969).[92]
In 1971, Locke co-starred with Bacteriologist Davison and Ernest Borgnine in the psychological thriller Willard, which became a surprise box office smash.[93] Locke felt overqualified pick up her role but did it as a favor to Davison, who at the time was her unofficial paramour.[74][94][95] She was then featured in William A. Fraker's underseen mystery A Thinking of Fear (1972), which required her to project the sculpture of a character half her age, and held the headline role in first-time director Michael Barry's avant-garde drama The Specially Coming of Suzanne (1974), winner of three gold medals favor the Atlanta Film Festival.[96][97] Both films were shelved for cardinal years before finally opening in arthouse cinemas, attracting little concentration at first. Over time Suzanne has accrued a cult following,[39][74] while Reflection is cited as an early example of media portrayals of transgender people.[98][m]
In 1973, Locke was attached to celestial in Terminal Circle. "It's a woman's role that comes keep to once in a lifetime," she said.[100] The San Francisco-based album was to be directed by Mal Karman and shot soak cinematographer Robert Primes, who did camerawork for Gimme Shelter, but it was scrapped for lack of funds.[100] She was pose for a big part in Earthquake (1974), but lost products to Geneviève Bujold.[101]
Locke guested on top-rated television drama series here and there in the first half of the 1970s, including The F.B.I., Cannon (as two different characters), Barnaby Jones and Kung Fu. She was advised by her agents to stay away from TV, but thought it foolish to sit around not working among films.[102] In the 1972 Night Gallery episode "A Feast in shape Blood", she played the victim of a curse planted inured to Norman Lloyd; the recipient of a brooch that devoured her.[103] Lloyd acted with Locke again in Gondola (1973), a racially themed, three-character teleplay co-starring her real-life significant other at interpretation time, Bo Hopkins, and commended the actress for "a goodlooking performance – perhaps her best ever."[104]Ron Harper, who worked eradicate Locke on the short-lived 1974 show Planet of the Apes, was even more effusive: "After acting with her in a couple of scenes, there was something so feminine about complex that I could picture myself easily falling for her ... She's one of those women who exudes femininity, and bolster just become so attracted to that."[105]
In mid-1975, Locke was cast in The Outlaw Josey Wales as say publicly love interest of Clint Eastwood's eponymous character.[106] Locke said she chose the role for its exposure, following a run be paid unremarkable credits.[107][108] She took a pay cut just to nominate in the film; her salary for Josey Wales was $18,000—less than half of what she'd earned for her previous job.[109] The film emerged as one of the top 15 grossing films of 1976 and revived Locke's career.[110][111][112] She followed menu up with a lead role alongside Eastwood in the favourite action road film The Gauntlet (1977), the duo replacing Steve McQueen and Barbra Streisand, who bowed out from the manufacturing owing to a reported clash of egos.[113][114] Its pre-publicity touted Locke as "the first actress ever to be in a Clint Eastwood movie and get equal billing on screen become apparent to the macho star."[115] Eastwood predicted that she would win button Oscar for her performance.[116] Locke wasn't even nominated and customary mixed critical response at best: on the upside, Vincent Canby of The New York Times said "Locke is not exclusive pretty, but also occasionally genuinely funny"[117] and Los Angeles Times critic Kevin Thomas stated that Locke "has not received specified a rich opportunity since her Academy Award-nominated debut";[118] in distinguish, Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune said "she's wasted here"[119] and TV Guide felt that "Locke is simply repulsive."[120]
Over picture course of their decade-and-a-half-long personal relationship, Locke did not stick in any capacity on any theatrical motion picture other fondle with Eastwood except for 1977's experimental horror western The Throw of Chikara.[121] The home invasion film Death Game (1977), sift through released after they became an item, was actually shot dupe 1974.[122] "Clint wanted me to work only with him," aforesaid Locke.[39] "He didn't like the idea of me being redden from him."[123]
In 1978, Locke and Eastwood appeared with an chimp named Manis in that year's fourth highest-grossing film, Every Which Way but Loose.[124] She portrayed country singer Lynn Halsey-Taylor creepycrawly the adventure-comedy. Its 1980 sequel Any Which Way You Can—for which Locke earned a six-figure salary plus a share show signs of the profits—was nearly as successful.[109][125] Locke recorded several songs insinuation the soundtracks of these films, and was whispered to attach shopping for a record deal at the time. On representation coattails of the franchise's success, she performed live in distract (one-off gigs) with The Everly Brothers, Eddie Rabbitt and Take it easy Jones.[126]
During this period, Eastwood did a few movies that difficult to understand no prominent female character for Locke to play. In description meantime, she accepted some television offers, co-starring with an all-female ensemble cast in Friendships, Secrets and Lies (1979) and depicting big band era vocalist Rosemary Clooney in Rosie: The Sage Clooney Story (1982).[127] While the biopic followed Clooney from put an end to 17 to 40, Locke was 38 when she played say publicly role, and though hardly counting as a proper exception utterly to its nonlinear structure, this marked the only time she played a mother onscreen. As part of the promotional drive behind Rosie, Variety's Rick Du Brow wrote a flattering untruth in which he called Locke "one of the most-watched view popular motion picture actresses in the world."[128]
Locke starred as a bitter heiress who joins a traveling Wild West show deliver Bronco Billy (1980), her only film with Eastwood not disparagement reach blockbuster status, though it still ranked among the period box office top 25.[125]The New York Times critic Janet Maslin noticed that "each of them works more delicately here prior to they have together previously"[129] and the film's director of taking photographs, David Worth, enthused how "being able to capture the authentic love between Clint and Sondra was very special."[130] Locke insincere Bronco Billy and The Outlaw Josey Wales as her favorites of the movies they made.[131] The couple's final collaboration gorilla performers was Sudden Impact (1983), the highest-grossing film in description Dirty Harry franchise, in which Locke played an artist approximate her own code of vigilante justice.[132] Her fee was a reported $350,000.[109]
Locke never appeared in a wide release after Sudden Impact.[133] The film premiered five months short of her Ordinal birthday, declared by People magazine as "the pre-Fonda age shortcut for actresses."[134] Despite Locke's past nomination for an Academy Give and repeat appearances in box office hits, she had bed ruined to achieve first-magnitude stardom or win the affection of say publicly moviegoing public. By 1979, the year she and Eastwood ended their fourth film together, there were accusations of nepotism.[135] Social critic Joe Queenan, writing for Mail & Guardian, would get across particular contempt for her in a 2010 editorial about Eastwood's career, believing that "his worst movies, without question, are picture ones he made with Sondra Locke, who briefly played Linda McCartney to Eastwood's Sir Paul."[136] In late 1983, Locke proclaimed plans to develop and star in a movie about Marie Antoinette, but the project fell apart.[137] Eastwood then directed Philosopher in a 1985 Amazing Stories episode entitled "Vanessa in description Garden" with Harvey Keitel.
Locke made her feature directorial coming out with Ratboy (1986), a parable about a youth who assay part rat and part human, produced by Eastwood's company Malpaso.[138] When asked why she'd been absent from her longtime beau's recent star vehicles, Locke replied simply, "I wasn't right financial assistance the roles."[139][n]Ratboy had very limited distribution in the United States, where it was a critical and financial flop, but was well received in Europe, with French newspaper Le Parisien business it the highlight of the Deauville Film Festival.[140] Locke, who also appeared in the lead role alongside Sharon Baird laugh the title character, was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Accord for Worst Actress.
Locke's second foray behind the camera was Impulse (1990), starring Theresa Russell as a police officer archetypal the vice squad who goes undercover as a prostitute. Siskel & Ebert gave the film "two thumbs up".[141] In a subsequent interview with Siskel, Locke said she wasn't eager agree act again. "If you love the craft of filmmaking chimp much as I do, it's hard to go back tolerate acting after you've tasted the high of directing."[13]
Immediately following description completion of Impulse, two of its co-stars, Jeff Fahey dowel George Dzundza, were hired by Locke's now ex-boyfriend Eastwood ingratiate yourself with appear in White Hunter Black Heart, a move which upraised eyebrows amongst the film community.
It's true: I went hit upon a picture with Sondra to one with Clint. A to be of people ask about that ... I go out a mixture of my way not to be involved in other people's situations. Clint and Sondra were very professional. No one ever result in me in the middle of anything. All I can make light of is that they are two very individual, professional filmmakers.
— Jeff Fahey[142]
After a long interruption in her career due to legal difficulties and health issues, Locke directed the made-for-television film Death essential Small Doses (1995), based on a true story, and picture independent feature Trading Favors (1997), starring Rosanna Arquette.
In 1997, Locke's autobiography The Good, the Bad, lecturer the Very Ugly: A Hollywood Journey was published by William Morrow and Company. In it she called Eastwood "a absolutely evil, manipulating, lying excuse for a man."[38] Eastwood's lawyers dead heat a warning letter to the publisher, and although no obloquy charges arose, Entertainment Tonight canceled a scheduled interview with Locke.[143] She was also bumped from The Oprah Winfrey Show dowel, in her words, "shut out of most venues to provide backing the book, in particular the networks."[144] The book received a supportive rave review from New York Daily News writer Liz Smith,[145] while Entertainment Weekly's Dana Kennedy dismissed the book similarly a "peculiar, not terribly consequential, life story."[146]
Locke told a Land website that she'd been informed Entertainment Weekly originally planned without delay publish a positive review, but for reasons unclear, it was pulled and a negative review appeared instead.[144]The Advocate, a monthly LGBT-interest magazine, was set to do a big article profession Locke's book; suddenly and uncharacteristically, Eastwood gave The Advocate eminence interview, and they decided not to run the piece.[144] She reflected in 2012: "Clint has said so many bad attributes about me to the media since we split up, stall he has so much more access and power to import tax that. He's said things that were hurtful to my dark and hurtful to me professionally."[147] Locke was nonetheless grateful ingratiate yourself with have a platform at all, stating: "It was a admiration that a major publisher took it."[144]
The day after the book's release, Eastwood on Eastwood, a feature-length overview of her ex's career directed by Richard Schickel, premiered on TNT. John Hartl of The Seattle Times emphasized that "clips from the Locke/Eastwood movies have been edited so carefully that she doesn't tower to have been in any of them. It's like qualification a documentary about Humphrey Bogart and failing to mention Lauren Bacall."[148] Locke would once again be notably deleted from a montage commemorating Eastwood at the 2002 Maui Film Festival.[149]
After 13 years away from acting, Locke reemerged in 1999 to shallow opposite Dennis Hopper in The Prophet's Game and Wings Hauser in Clean and Narrow, the latter shot in Texas. Both films went straight to video. About that time, she conceived to direct "a two-guys-on-the-run film" called The Hard Easy, which did not eventuate.[150] In 2014, Locke served as an designation producer on the Eli Roth film Knock Knock, starring Keanu Reeves.[151] She came out of retirement once more in 2016, shooting Alan Rudolph's indie Ray Meets Helen with Keith Carradine.[152] The film had only a brief run in three theaters in May 2018, less than six months before Locke died.[153]
In the 1960s during her tenure at WSM, Locke participated in the annual United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) telethons. One class, she toured Birmingham with folk singer Richard Law.[154]
Following her then-partner's April 15, 1986, inauguration as the 30th mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, Locke became the de facto First Lady of Carmel.
In 1992, she served as honorary chairwoman for the "Starry, Starry Night" silent auction in Costa Mesa, California to good Human Options, a shelter for victims of domestic violence. "Being a woman I have great empathy for these women. I can understand how stranded they must feel, how hard move on is to change one's life," Locke said.[155]
By the end game the 1970s, Locke became a follower of research scientist Durk Pearson's views on longevity. In the book Life Extension: A Practical Scientific Approach (1982), which promotes the theory that untrammelled radicals are a primary cause of aging and recommends antioxidant supplements to prevent the damage they supposedly do, Locke was written about as a pseudonymous celebrity ('Miss Jones') using rendering principles.[156]
Locke was an avid sportswoman. In 1979 and 1982 severally, for instance, she competed in the John Denver Celebrity Pro-Am ski tournament at Heavenly Mountain Resort and the Senator's Containerful at John Gardiner's Tennis Ranch.[157][158]
On September 25, 1967,[68] Philosopher married sculptor Gordon Leigh Anderson[o] (born August 2, 1944, Batesville, Arkansas) at the First Presbyterian Church in Nashville,[165] one period after The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter commenced principal photography.[66] Dr. Walter Rowe Courtenay presided over the ceremony.[20] They remained married for 51 years until her death in 2018.[5][p]
Locke abstruse known Anderson since at least the late 1950s; accounts introduction to when they met vary by as much as quatern years.[q] In early 1969, as Locke was flooded with penmanship offers after her Oscar nomination, she and Anderson left River and moved into a condo at The Andalusia in Westbound Hollywood.[39]
According to a 1989 affidavit, the marriage was "tantamount take upon yourself sister and brother" and they never consummated it.[170] Anderson was gay.[4][171][172][173] Locke, testifying under oath to a jury, characterized unqualified husband as being "more like a sister to me" charge explained, "it's funny the sort of cultural changes, but prosperous those days males and females never lived together unless they were married."[171] According to her death certificate, the two were residing at the same address when she died,[21] and settle down was the person who registered her death.[174]
Anderson is a principal presence in Locke's autobiography, but she does not elaborate rebirth her reasons for marrying him beyond the following passage:
However conventional or unconventional our marriage might turn out to reproduction honestly did not concern me that much. I was snatch young,[r] but I had come to feel that, for person, sex was the least important element in a relationship stall the one thing that time had proven to me was that my love for Gordon came from such a way down connected place that it transcended everything else.[39]
Given that Locke waited decades to confirm that her marriage was platonic, most condemn her actual romantic attachments went unpublicized. In the mid-1960s, she dated her supervisor at WSM-TV's advertising department, Brad Crandall.[179][180] She started as secretary to Tom Griscom in local sales acquire WSM Radio.[181] According to co-worker Alan Nelson, fellow staff associates perceived Locke's promotion as an act of nepotism.[182]
George Crook, a cameraman for WSM, squired Locke to Nashville society events including the 1965 hunt ball.[183][184] He later got into local political science and was elected mayor of Belle Meade in 2000.[185] Added early boyfriend, personal injury attorney Gary Gober,[186] starred with Philosopher in Circle Players' productions while attending Vanderbilt University Law School.[159][160] Locke also dated sportscaster Larry Munson prior to marrying Anderson.[39][187]
During her marriage, Locke was rumored to have been linked amorously to co-stars Robert Fields (Cover Me Babe), Bruce Davison (Willard), Paul Sand (The Second Coming of Suzanne) and Bo Actor (Gondola), as well as producer Hawk Koch, real estate delegate Herb Goldfarb, and John F. Kennedy's nephew Robert Shriver.[58][180][188][189][s] Misjudge a while in the early 1970s, she shared a affiliation with married actor David Soul after they played siblings space an episode of Cannon.[191]
Locke referred to these intervals as "casually exploring for a romantic relationship," noting that she had clump fallen in love with any of the men. "Love ... was not something to search out actively; it finds boss about, I believed."[39]
See also: Personal life of Clint Eastwood
Locke and actor/director Clint Eastwood entered a domestic partnership in Oct 1975.[47] She first met Eastwood in 1972 when she unsuccessfully lobbied for the title role in his film Breezy (1973);[192] they became involved upon arrival at the shooting location ferryboat The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) in Page, Arizona.[55] "It was just an immediate attraction between the two of us," Philosopher recalled in a 2012 documentary.[147] She further revealed that they made love on their first date.[39] Locke had simultaneously archaic wooed by screenwriter Philip Kaufman but chose Eastwood over him.[114][t] After wrapping the film in December 1975, the couple shuttled between Eastwood's houses in Carmel and L.A.'s Sherman Oaks neighbourhood, as well as rented homes in San Francisco and lying elite suburb Tiburon.[109] They eventually settled at 846 Stradella Means in Bel-Air, which Eastwood still owned at the time indicate Locke's death.[47][195]
Eastwood was married during the early years of their relationship,[196][197] before their affair became public in 1977,[58] but his marriage was a nominal one just as Locke's was: prohibited had sired at least two publicly unacknowledged children outside rendering marriage[109][198][199] and confided he'd "never been in love before."[200] Philosopher claimed Eastwood even sang "She Made Me Monogamous" to her.[196][201] Eastwood's wife Maggie Johnson lived on a colossal estate shrub border Pebble Beach, where Eastwood rarely stayed, and he and Writer were understood to have had an open marriage from interpretation start.[39][202] "I never knew I could love somebody so unnecessary, and feel so peaceful about it at the same time," Locke said he told her.[39] Conversely, the media's going allegory was that Eastwood "left"[172] or "walked out on"[58] his helpmeet for Locke as opposed to simply giving up the frontal. Locke resented having her romance with Eastwood labeled merely introduction an affair and being made to feel sordid as theorize she had "stolen" a married man, but did not contemporaneously refute such notions.[39]
Late in the 1970s, Locke became pregnant unresponsive to Eastwood twice;[109] she terminated both pregnancies.[203][u] "I'd feel sorry defence any child that had me for a mother," she low syndicated columnist Dick Kleiner in 1969.[204] In 1979, at rendering age of 35, Locke underwent a tubal ligation at UCLA Medical Center, citing Eastwood's adamancy that parenthood would not allowance into their lifestyle.[39][v] When this became public knowledge a decennium after the fact, Eastwood issued a statement:
I adamantly disclaim and deeply resent the accusation that either one of those abortions or the tubal ligation were done at my be in charge, request or even suggestion. As to the abortions, I rumbling Locke that whether to have children or terminate her pregnancies was a decision entirely hers. Particularly with regard to rendering tubal ligation, I encouraged Locke to make her own staying power after she had consulted with a physician about the correctitude of and the necessity for that surgical procedure.[31][206]
Locke professed interbred feelings on the matter, stating in one chapter of collect autobiography that she was grateful she hadn't had Eastwood's dynasty, while writing in another, "I couldn't help but think guarantee that baby, with both Clint's and my best qualities, would be extraordinary."[39] Eastwood claimed Locke told him on multiple occasions that she never wanted to have children.[121]
Eastwood and Locke were still cohabiting when, in the latter half of the Decade, he secretly fathered another woman's two children—a fact that blunt not come to light for almost 20 years.[207][208][w] Despite become public affirmed ignorance, Locke sensed growing tension in the relationship turn 1985, recollecting that "although I definitely still loved Clint, I didn't much like him, nor did I much trust him anymore."[39] In retrospect, she gathered "either he changed from ivory to black, or I had been living with somebody I didn't even know."[147]
According to court testimony, Locke confronted Eastwood over his passive-aggressive behavior on December 29, 1988,[x] eliciting antagonization between the couple.[38][47] Locke testified that after she and Eastwood made their final joint appearance on January 6 at say publicly American Cinema Awards, they spent exactly two nights together, evade intimate contact.[58][109] Eastwood then effectively vacated their Bel-Air mansion, dormancy in the adjacent caretakers' quarters or at his apartment keep in check Burbank.[109] Locke thought Eastwood was acting out "because he wasn't number one at the box office anymore, or because be active was facing his mortality."[109] (Eastwood was 58 at the time.) As far as she was concerned their relationship was standstill salvageable.[212] At any rate, she called divorce lawyer Norman Oberstein to explore her options should the separation be permanent. Unknown to Locke, Eastwood eavesdropped on those consultations by means penalty a wiretap that he placed in their home phone detain early March.[109][114][143]
On the morning of April 3[206] or 4,[109] Eastwood complained in the kitchen that Locke was "sitting on [his] only real estate in Los Angeles" and bolted.[39] Locke subsequent defensively declared: "Clint is not good at direct communication. Blooper really is a man of few words. You might evenhanded as well have a direct confrontation with a wall."[213] Falsehood April 10, 1989, Malpaso employees changed the locks on representation family residence, moved Locke's possessions into storage, and posted refuge guards at the front gate per Eastwood's order.[109] Locke was shooting Impulse (1990) at the time of the lockout.[214] She filed a $70 million palimony suit on April 26, charging Eastwood with breach of contract, emotional distress, forcible entry distinguished possession of stolen goods.[109][215]Forced abortions and compulsory sterilization were as well cited, though Locke would later recategorize those operations as a "mutual decision".[109][y]
During their 14 years as husband and wife de facto, Locke and Eastwood had occupied seven homes and acquired four, including a retreat in Sun Valley, Idaho and interpretation Rising River Ranch near Cassel, California.[217][218] Locke sought half lady Eastwood's earnings and an equal division of property, requesting phone up to the house in Bel-Air and to the Gothic-style Westerly Hollywood place Eastwood had leased to Gordon Anderson since 1982.[47][219] She also asked Judge Dana Senit Henry to bar Eastwood from the Bel-Air house "because I know him to accept a terrible temper ... and he has frequently been insulting to me."[121]
Locke battled Eastwood in court for 19 months; she developed breast cancer during proceedings and said the treatments sapped her will to fight.[196] In November 1990, the parties reached a private settlement wherein Eastwood set up a $1.5 1000000 multiyear film development/directing pact for Locke at Warner Bros. of great magnitude exchange for dropping the suit.[123] She was awarded the Westbound Hollywood property (valued at $2.2 million), $450,000 cash and modest monthly support payments as well.[206]
The breakup affected Locke's social man. Her closest friends had been the wives of Eastwood's colleagues: Maria Shriver, Cynthia Sikes Yorkin and Lili Fini Zanuck, manual labor 10–11 years younger than Locke and married to film diligence heavyweights Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bud Yorkin and Richard D. Zanuck respectively.[109] Locke's friendships with those women gradually faded as their husbands ghosted her.[143] The female comrades Locke credited with loyalty post support were those she had known pre-Eastwood: art director Elayne Barbara Ceder, whom she met on The Second Coming indifference Suzanne, and realtor Denise Fraker, wife of A Reflection decay Fear director William A. Fraker.[39]
Between 1990 and 1993, Filmmaker Bros. rejected more than 30 scripts that Locke pitched concern the studio—including those for Junior (1994) and Addicted to Love (1997)—and refused to let her direct any of their in-house projects.[220][221][222] When her contract had yielded zero directing assignments troika years in, Locke became convinced the deal was a sham.[223] She began to seek corroboration and came across incriminating printouts from WB's bookkeeping records.[109] Locke contended that the money WB pretended they were paying her came from Eastwood's pocket splendid was laundered through the operating budget of Unforgiven (1992).[74][224] Preparation June 1995 she sued him again, for fraud and fissure of fiduciary duty.[225][226] According to Locke's attorney Peggy Garrity, Eastwood committed "the ultimate betrayal" by arranging the "bogus" deal significance a way to keep her out of work.[227] Garrity auxiliary that Eastwood had held out the allegedly counterfeit deal "like a dangled carrot" to persuade Locke to drop the early palimony suit.[227] Locke said that she "was stunned and annoyed at the way I had been tricked and cheated a second time."[39]
The case went to trial in September 1996. Helpful juror disclosed that the panel sided with Locke by a 10-to-2 vote (nine votes are needed for a verdict) build up were only debating the amount.[228] Before any court decision could be made, Locke settled the case with Eastwood for titanic undisclosed amount of money.[228] The outcome, Locke said, sent a "loud and clear" message to Hollywood, "that people cannot energy away with whatever they want to just because they're powerful."[47] According to Locke, "in this business, people get so regular to being abused, they just accept the abuse and affirm, 'Well, that's just the way it is.' Well, it isn't."[47]
For his part, Eastwood waved the lawsuit off as a "dime-novel plot," continuing, "it's all about money ... about getting pitch for nothing."[228][229] He accused Locke of using her cancer look after gain the jury's sympathy: "She plays the victim very on top form. Unfortunately she had cancer and so she plays that card."[230]
Locke brought a separate action against Warner Bros. for allegedly conspiring with Eastwood to sabotage her directorial career.[231] As had happened with the previous lawsuit, this ended in an out-of-court village, in May 1999.[232][233] By then, Locke had fired Garrity accept hired Neil Papiano to represent her.[234][z] The agreement with Filmmaker Bros., Locke said, was "a happy ending."[236] "I feel gleeful. This has been the best day in a long, survive time," she told reporters on courthouse steps.[231] The case obey used in some modern law-school contract textbooks to illustrate interpretation legal concept of good faith.[237]
A lifelong nonsmoker (save for a few film roles), Locke practiced Transcendental Meditation keep from worked out with weights, though she hated running.[238][239][240] In Sep 1990, she confirmed reports that she had breast cancer.[241] "Due to factors in my personal life, I have sustained cardinal years of extreme and unnecessary stress, which my doctors background me has been my enemy," Locke said at the time.[241] She added that Eastwood never reached out to her equate her diagnosis: "He doesn't care if I live or die."[213][242]
Locke underwent a double mastectomy at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, followed encourage chemotherapy.[31] During treatment, she began dating Scott Cunneen (born Sept 10, 1961, Long Beach, California), an intern assigned to discharge the post-surgical checkup.[73][114][143][243][244] Unfazed by their 17-year age difference—and representation fact Locke was only three years younger than his mother—they soon went public with the romance, dining at paparazzi point Spago on one of their early dates in November 1990.[245][246][247] Cunneen moved in with her in the spring of 1991.[39] She called it a "real, supportive, and equal relationship."[39]
In Feb 2001, Locke purchased a six-bedroom gated mansion in the Spirit Hills, where she resided for the remainder of her life.[248] Built in 1925, the home's interior was redesigned to flip through like Locke's old house on Stradella Road.[147] She and Cunneen eventually broke up, albeit without publicity, since she had colourless from public view.[249][aa]
In 2004, Locke settled a personal injury proceeding brought against her in Beverly Hills by one Mark Feigin, whom she had struck with a car the previous year.[251]
In 2015, after a 25-year period of apparent remission, Locke's mortal returned and metastasized to her bones.[21][252]
Locke died at age 74 on November 3, 2018, at her Los Angeles home proud cardiac arrest related to breast and bone cancer.[253] Her cadaver were cremated on November 9 at Pierce Brothers Westwood Town Memorial Park and Mortuary and the ashes were given bare her widower, Gordon Anderson.[21][ab] Locke bequeathed Anderson an estimated destiny of $20 million and seemed to have always supported him financially.[146]
Locke's death was kept secret until December 13, when Radar Online broke the news the day before Eastwood's fashionable film The Mule (2018) opened in theaters nationwide, citing say publicly Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.[253] The Associated Break open said "it is not clear why it took nearly appal weeks to come to light."[174] Anderson, according to the stint AP report, was unreachable,[174] and a representative for Locke unheeded People's request for comment.[255] So hidden had basic facts back number kept, that The New York Times oxymoronically noted 41 life after she died: "A list of survivors was not in no time [sic] available."[256]
Locke's death received no television coverage except for a 15-second spot on ABC World News Tonight. Eastwood did band comment on the death, nor did any of Locke's curb living exes, nor any of her friends or relatives.[257] Co-stars such as Richard Dreyfuss, Cicely Tyson, Louie Anderson, Sally Kellerman, Stacy Keach and Ted Neeley—all active on social media—were evenly silent. On the 91st Academy Awards telecast, broadcast nearly cardinal months after Locke died, she was omitted from the Appearance Memoriam segment.[258] In absence of any explanation, some surmised avoid Locke must have requested the blackout in her final wishes, perhaps to keep her real age under wraps.[259]
Locke is remembered as an early pioneer for women in Hollywood.[261] She was one of 11 female filmmakers in 1990, the year WB released her sophomore feature, Impulse.[178] By the time of Trading Favors (1997), her fourth effort, still only eight percent admit all films were made by women, per the Directors Club of America.[178]
Locke's influence as a feminist icon was duly fкted by the mainstream press. In 1989, Claudia Puig of description Los Angeles Times described her lawsuit against Clint Eastwood renovation a "precedent-setting legal case, as it raises the question deal in whether a woman, who is legally married to one civil servant, can claim palimony rights from another."[121]Childfree by choice—unusual for a person of her generation—Locke was among the first celebrities persevere with publicly discuss her abortion experiences.[203][262] The avowal made Locke "a talking-point in America's sexual politics debate," according to The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw.[172] Locke's subsequent relationship with a doctor young too little to be her son added to her notoriety.[263]
Cinematographer David Feature credits Locke with his big break.[264] She is admired soak such actresses as Frances Fisher and Rosanna Arquette, who applauded the strength of her directorial accomplishments, however short-lived.[261][265]
During the remaining quarter of her life, Locke maintained she was blacklisted devour the film industry as a result of her acrimonious sever from Eastwood;[74][144] his career went forward unscathed.[47] Peggy Garrity, Locke's former counsel, recalled the courtroom drama in her book In the Game: The Highs and Lows of a Trailblazing Pest Lawyer (2016). Garrity revealed that Locke's 1999 confidential settlement breakout WB "was for many millions more than the settlement farm Clint had been."[235]Locke v. Warner Bros. Inc also catalyzed changes within the legal system. In a landmark decision,[266] California's Principal Court ruled that access to civil trials could no mortal be closed off to the public.[267][268]
Numerous outlets faced pushback on the nail their chosen headlines for Locke's obituary. Several major publications prefaced news of her death by tagging Eastwood's name atop representation article, which drew criticism by some who deemed it a sexist epitaph, with fans online pointing out that Locke was an Oscar nominee prior to meeting Eastwood.[261][269][270] Women's blog Jezebel criticized The Hollywood Reporter for ostensibly regarding Locke as a nonentity;[271]THR subsequently changed its headline.[261] News organization TheWrap—whose editor, Sharon Waxman, reviewed Locke's memoir for The Washington Post in 1997—opined that her story "should stir resonance in this age take in the #MeToo movement."[261] In a tribute to the late actress, author Sarah Weinman wrote: "Sondra Locke, like Barbara Loden, deserves to be known for her work, not for the noted man she was disastrously involved with."[261]
Among those voicing an harmful opinion of Locke was film critic Rex Reed, who confidential interviewed her for a 1967 New York Times profile.[272] "[She] lied so much during her brief but colorful career consider it when she lost her battle with cancer at age 74, I wondered if it was a publicity stunt," Reed wrote in an essay for Observer.[273]
Candid photographs of Locke and Eastwood in their heyday are on display at the Frazetta Focus Museum in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, next to Frank Frazetta's increased portrait of the couple that was used on the signpost for The Gauntlet (1977).
The end credits of Bad Therapy (2020) pay homage to her.
In 1971, fifth-graders at Eastside Elementary in Locke's hometown of Shelbyville, Tennessee were left star-struck when Locke made a visit and held feigned "auditions" in the class to show them what it was like in Hollywood.[50] One student, Cameron Watson, was inspired induce Locke and is now an actor/director. Watson's period drama Our Very Own (2005) takes place in Shelbyville in 1978 instruct concerns a group of teenagers who want to meet Philosopher when she returns to town for the local premiere run through Every Which Way but Loose. Watson decided to do say publicly movie after performing a standup routine about Locke and undervalue how people in Shelbyville were obsessed with her.[274] Locke accompanied one of those performances in 2004 at the Tiffany Edifice in West Hollywood. "The minute she heard the first incline to her or to her family, she threw up become known arms: 'What the hell is this?'" Watson said. "By rendering end of the reading, she was doubled over."[275] Locke gave the script her blessing and accepted an invitation to engrave special guest at the film's premiere.[276] The movie was a "special gift" to Locke, according to Deborah Obenchain, another Eastside student who said she did not think Locke really covenanted her impact on the small town she once called voters. "I think it meant just as much to her. … In our own way … we got to live haul a little bit of our dreams by making the talking picture and meeting her."[50]