Actor Sondra dead at 74
Oscar-nominated actor, who had been battling breast and bone cancer, died on Nov.3 in California but her death was not publicised until Radaronline first reported it on Thursday
LOS ANGELES: Actress and director Sondra Locke, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her irst ilm role in 1968’s The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and went on to co-star in six ilms with Clint Eastwood, has died.
Locked died Nov.3 at her Los Angeles home of cardiac arrest stemming from breast and bone cancer, according to a death certificate obtained by The Associated Press.
She was 74. Authorities were promptly notified at the time, but her death was not publicised until Radaronline irst reported it on Thursday.
It is not clear why it took nearly six weeks to come to light.
Locke was best known for the six ilms 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.
Born Sandra Louise Smith - she would later take on a stepfather’s last name and take on 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.
She would win raves for the role along with nominations for a Golden Globe and an Oscar. Both awards went to Ruth Gordon for Rosemary’s Baby.
She had a run of unmemorable ilm and TV roles until meeting Eastwood on the set of Josey Wales, which he both directed and starred in.
Her career would mirror his for the next several years. The pair’s hit ilms also included the 1978 street-ighting 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 ilm Ratboy, which lopped in the US 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. 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.