Actress and director Sondra Locke, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her first film role in 1968\u2019s \u201cThe Heart is a Lonely Hunter\u201d and went on to co-star in six films with\u2026<\/b>
\nLOS ANGELES \u2014 Actress and director Sondra Locke, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her first film role in 1968\u2019s \u201cThe Heart Is a Lonely Hunter\u201d and went on to co-star in six films 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 publicized until RadarOnline first reported it Thursday. 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 \u2014 whom she dated for 13 years \u2014 starting with the Western \u201cThe Outlaw Josey Wales\u201d in 1976 and ending with the Dirty Harry movie \u201cSudden Impact\u201d in 1983.
Born Sandra Louise Smith \u2014 she would later take on a stepfather\u2019s last name and take on the stage name Sondra \u2014 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\u2019 1940 novel \u201cThe Heart is a Lonely Hunter.\u201d
She would win raves for the role along with nominations for a Golden Globe and an Oscar. Both awards went to Ruth Gordon for \u201cRosemary\u2019s Baby.\u201d
She had a run of unmemorable film and TV roles until meeting Eastwood on the set of \u201cJosey Wales,\u201d which he both directed and starred in.
Her career would mirror his for the next several years. The pair\u2019s hit films also included the 1978 street-fighting and orangutan comedy \u201cEvery Which Way But Loose\u201d and its 1980 sequel \u201cAny Which Way You Can.\u201d
Locke also played singer Rosemary Clooney in a 1982 TV biopic, and directed the 1986 film \u201cRatboy,\u201d which flopped in the U. S. but was popular with critics in Europe.
In 1989, Locke\u2019s 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. They settled the highly publicized lawsuit for an undisclosed amount during jury deliberations in 1996.
The following year she released her memoir, titled \u201cThe Good, the Bad and the Very Ugly: A Hollywood Journey,\u201d which also detailed the double mastectomy and chemotherapy that came with her first bout with breast cancer.
She told the AP at the time that the title, a play on one of Eastwood\u2019s films, was \u201capplicable to the story.\u201d
\u201cI try to cover the good years as well as the bad and the ugly,\u201d Locke said. \u201cAlso, that in even the worst ugly things there can sometimes be a lot that will make you a better person.\u201d
Locke had 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. A phone number listed in Anderson\u2019s name rang without being picked up.<\/p>\n