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Oscar-designated performing artist Sondra Locke, best known for her on-and-off-screen association with Clint Eastwood, kicked the bucket a month ago after a fight with bosom and bone malignancy.
She was 74.
Locke featured opposite Alan Arkin in the 1968 motion picture “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” in the wake of winning an ability scan for the job of adolescent Mick Kelly.
Arkin brought home an Oscar selection for the best performing artist, while the crisp confronted Locke was named for Golden Globes for best supporting performer and the most encouraging newcomer.
She and Eastwood started dating amid shooting on the 1976 Civil War flick “The Outlaw Josey Wales” and carried on a relationship for over 10 years.
During that time, she appeared almost solely in his movies, including “The Gauntlet” (1977), “Every Which Way but Loose” (1978), “Bronco Billy” (1980), “Any Which Way You Can” (1980) and “Sudden Impact” (1983), part of the “Dirty Harry” franchise.
In the mid-’80s, Locke began directing, though with limited success.
She and Eastwood split at the end of the decade in an ugly separation that included a palimony lawsuit and a fraud case in which she claimed Warner Bros. conspired with Eastwood to sabotage her directorial career.
“I believe, that he really did not want me to direct,” she told Coming Soon in 2015. “The dynamic of our relationship entirely shifted. He had been the director and I was the actor. You know, he was the one in charge. And I think that he just did not want me to direct.”
Locke published her autobiography, “The Good, the Bad, and the Very Ugly – A Hollywood Journey,” in 1997.
Her most recent role was alongside Keith Carradine in “Ray Meets Helen” last year.
