Sondra Locke facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Sondra Locke
Locke in 1968
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	Sandra Elkins Sandra Locke Sondra Anderson
Alma mater	Middle Tennessee State University
Occupation	Actress director
Years active	1962–2016
Agent	Michael Selsman Leonard Hirshan Gersh Agency
Spouse(s)	Gordon Anderson ​ (m. 1967)​
Partner(s)	Clint Eastwood (1975–1989) Scott Cunneen (1990–?)
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Sandra Louise Anderson (née Smith; May 28, 1944 – November 3, 2018), professionally known as Sondra Locke, was an American actress and director. She achieved recognition for her relationship with Clint Eastwood and the six hit films they made together.

An alumna of Middle Tennessee State University, Locke broke into regional show business with assorted posts at the Nashville-based radio station WSM-AM, then segued into television as a promotions assistant for WSM-TV. In 1968, she made her film debut in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Locke went on to appear in such box 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 Eastwood, who was her companion for 14 years despite their marriages to other people. She also directed four films, notably Impulse (1990), and published an autobiography, The Good, the Bad, and the Very Ugly: A Hollywood Journey (1997).

Locke's persona belied her age, and she habitually played roles written for women much younger than herself. She claimed to have been born several years later than 1944, and her true age remained a secret throughout her career. For reasons never made clear, her death was not publicly announced, and was only confirmed by vital statistics six weeks after she died of cardiac arrest at the age of 74.

Background, early life and education

Sandra Louise Smith was born on May 28, 1944, the daughter of New York City native Raymond Smith, then serving in the military, and Pauline Bayne, a pencil factory worker from Huntsville, Alabama, who was of mostly Scottish descent, with matrilineages in South Carolina extending back to the late 18th century. Locke's parents separated before her birth. In her autobiography, Locke noted that "although Momma would not admit it, I knew Mr. Smith never married my mother." She had a maternal half-brother, Donald (born April 26, 1946) from Bayne's subsequent brief marriage to William B. Elkins. When Bayne married Alfred Locke in 1948, Sandra and Donald assumed his surname. She grew up in Shelbyville, Tennessee, where her stepfather owned a construction company; the family later moved to nearby Wartrace. Self-described as introspective and ambitious, Locke started working part-time at age 16, drove her own car, and had a phone installed in her bedroom.

Locke's yearbook photo, 1960

Locke was a cheerleader and class valedictorian in junior high. From 1958, she attended Shelbyville Central High School, where she was again valedictorian and voted "Duchess of Studiousness" by classmates. She also played on the girls' basketball team, served as PTSA representative and was president of the French club. Despite this, she wasn't considered "date material" by the more socially prominent boys in her class. Following graduation in 1962, Locke enrolled at Middle Tennessee State University (then Middle Tennessee State College) in Murfreesboro on a full scholarship. Majoring in drama, she was a member of the Alpha Psi Omega honor society while at MTSU and appeared on stage in Life with Father and The Crucible. She dropped out after completing two semesters of study.

In or around 1963, Locke essentially broke off contact with her family, concluding: "It made no sense for any of us to spend our lives pretending to have relationships that did not really exist." She never knew her biological father, and did not attend the funerals of her mother (deceased 1997) or stepfather (deceased 2007), nor did she have anything to do with her brother, sister-in-law and three nieces. 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."

Locke held a variety of jobs, including as a bookkeeper for Tyson Foods and secretary in a real-estate office. For a time she lived in the commuter town of Gallatin. In 1964, she joined the staff at radio station WSM-AM 650 in Nashville and was promoted to its television affiliate WSM-Channel 4 the following year. Locke's biggest coup while 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. She also modeled for The Tennessean fashion page, acted in commercials for Rich-Schwartz ladies apparel and Southerland Gel mattresses, among others, and gained further stage experience in productions for Circle Players Inc. In 1966, the 22-year-old appeared in a UPI wire photo that showed her cavorting in new fallen snow. Within one year of this exposure, she decided to pursue a career in film and changed the spelling of her first name to avoid being called Sandy.

Career

Rise to prominence

In July 1967, Locke competed with 590 other Southern actresses and dozens of New York hopefuls for the part of Mick Kelly in a big-screen adaptation of Carson McCullers' novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter opposite Alan Arkin. For the first audition in Birmingham, then-fiancé Gordon Anderson gave his bride a so-called Hollywood makeover: he bound her bosom, bleached her eyebrows and carefully fixed her hair, makeup and outfit so as to create a more gamine appearance. They also lied about her age, shaving off six years to make her seem younger – a pretense Locke would keep up for the rest of her career. After callbacks in New Orleans and Manhattan, she was cast in the role by recommendation from Marion Dougherty.

The film came out in the summer of 1968 to critical acclaim. Locke's performance garnered her an Academy Award nomination, as well as a pair of Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress and Most Promising Newcomer – Female. Being the oldest nominee in the latter category, she concealed that distinction through retconning with aid from studio publicists. She won "Most Promising New Star of the Year" at the Show-A-Rama film exhibitor convention. Although her salary for the film was reported in newspapers as $15,000, Locke later claimed it was less than one-third that amount.

Commercial ups and downs, missed roles, TV work

From the 1973 PBS installment Gondola

Her next role was as Melisse in Cover Me Babe (1970), originally titled Run Shadow Run, opposite Robert Forster. She made it as part of a $150,000 three-picture deal with 20th Century Fox, and was compensated for the other two which never came to fruition. It was announced that she would play the lead in Lovemakers – a film adaptation of Robert Nathan's novel The Color of Evening – but no movie resulted. Locke was offered Barbara Hershey's role in Last Summer (1969), but her management turned it down without telling her. Shortly afterwards she passed on the lead in My Sweet Charlie (1970), which won an Emmy for its eventual star Patty Duke.

With David Carradine in Kung Fu, 1974

In 1971, Locke co-starred with Bruce Davison and Ernest Borgnine in the psychological thriller Willard, which became a surprise box office smash. Locke felt overqualified for her role but did it as a favor to Davison, who at the time was her unofficial paramour. She was then featured in William A. Fraker's underseen mystery A Reflection of Fear (1972), which required her to project the image of a character nearly half her age, and held the title role in The Second Coming of Suzanne (1974), winner of three gold medals at the Atlanta Film Festival. Both films were shelved for two years before finally opening in arthouse cinemas, attracting little attention at first. Over time Suzanne has developed a cult following, while Reflection is cited as an early example of media portrayals of transgender people.

In 1973, Locke was attached to star in Terminal Circle. "It's a woman's role that comes along once in a lifetime," she said. The San Francisco-set drama was to be directed by Mal Karman and shot by cinematographer Robert Primes, who did camerawork for Gimme Shelter, but it was scrapped for lack of funds. She was up for a big part in Earthquake (1974), but lost out to Geneviève Bujold.

Locke guested on top-rated television drama series throughout 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 between films. In the 1972 Night Gallery episode "A Feast of Blood", she played the victim of a curse planted by Norman Lloyd; the recipient of a brooch that devoured her. Lloyd acted with Locke again in Gondola (1973), a racially themed, three-character teleplay co-starring Bo Hopkins, and commended the actress for "a beautiful performance – perhaps her best ever." Ron Harper, who worked with 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 her that I could picture myself easily falling for her ... She's one of those women who exudes femininity, and you just become so attracted to that."

Films with Clint Eastwood

In 1975, Locke was cast in the western film The Outlaw Josey Wales as the love interest of Clint Eastwood's eponymous character. Locke said she chose the role for its exposure, following a run of unremarkable credits. She took a pay cut just to be in the film; her salary for Josey Wales was $18,000, less than half of what she'd earned for her previous job. The film was one of the top 15 grossing films of 1976 and revived Locke's career. She followed it up with a lead role alongside Eastwood in the popular action film The Gauntlet (1977), the duo replacing Steve McQueen and Barbra Streisand, who bowed out from the production owing to a reported clash of egos. Its pre-publicity touted Locke as "the first actress ever to be in a Clint Eastwood movie and get equal billing on screen with the macho star." Eastwood predicted that she would win an Oscar for her performance. Locke wasn't even nominated and received mixed critical response at best: on the upside, Vincent Canby of The New York Times said "Locke is not only pretty, but also occasionally genuinely funny" and Los Angeles Times critic Kevin Thomas stated that Locke "has not received such a rich opportunity since her Academy Award-nominated debut"; in contrast, Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune said "she's wasted here" and TV Guide felt that "Locke is simply repulsive."

Eastwood and Locke in The Gauntlet (1977)

Over the course of their decade-and-a-half-long personal relationship, Locke did not work in any capacity on any theatrical motion picture other than with Eastwood except for 1977's experimental horror western The Shadow of Chikara. The home invasion film Death Game (1977), though released after they became an item, was actually shot in 1974. "Clint wanted me to work only with him," said Locke. "He didn't like the idea of me being away from him."

In 1978, Locke and Eastwood appeared with an orangutan named Clyde in that year's fourth highest-grossing film, Every Which Way but Loose. She portrayed country singer Lynn Halsey-Taylor in the adventure-comedy. Its 1980 sequel Any Which Way You Can – for which Locke earned a six-figure salary plus a share of the profits – was nearly as successful. Locke recorded several songs for the soundtracks of these films and was whispered to be shopping for a record deal at the time. On the coattails of the franchise's success, she performed live in concert (one-off gigs) with The Everly Brothers, Eddie Rabbitt and Tom Jones.

During this period, Eastwood did a few movies that had no prominent female character for Locke to play. In the meantime, she accepted some television offers, co-starring with an all-female ensemble cast in Friendships, Secrets and Lies (1979) and portraying big band era vocalist Rosemary Clooney in Rosie: The Rosemary Clooney Story (1982). While the biopic followed Clooney from ages 17 to 40, Locke was 38 when she played the role, and though hardly counting as a proper exception due to its nonlinear structure, this marked the only time she played a mother onscreen.

Locke starred as a bitter heiress who joins a traveling Wild West show in Bronco Billy (1980), her only film with Eastwood not to reach blockbuster status, though it still ranked among the annual box office top 25. The New York Times critic Janet Maslin noticed that "each of them works more delicately here than they have together previously." Locke cited Bronco Billy and The Outlaw Josey Wales as her favorites of the movies they made. The couple's final collaboration as performers was Sudden Impact (1983), the highest-grossing film in the Dirty Harry franchise, in which Locke played an artist with her own code of vigilante justice. Her fee was a reported $350,000.

Locke never appeared in a wide release after Sudden Impact. The film premiered five months before her 40th birthday. Locke announced plans to develop and star in a movie about Marie Antoinette, but the project fell apart. Eastwood then directed Locke in a 1985 Amazing Stories episode entitled "Vanessa in the Garden".

Directing

In 1986, Locke made her feature directorial debut with Ratboy, a parable about a youth who is part rat and part human, produced by Eastwood's company Malpaso. When asked why she'd been absent from her longtime beau's recent star vehicles, Locke replied simply, "I wasn't right for the roles." Ratboy had 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 calling it the highlight of the Deauville Film Festival.

Locke's second foray behind the camera was Impulse (1990), starring Theresa Russell as a police officer on the vice squad. Siskel & Ebert gave the film "two thumbs up". In a subsequent interview with Siskel, Locke said she wasn't eager to act again. "If you love the craft of filmmaking as much as I do, it's hard to go back to acting after you've tasted the high of directing."

After a long interruption in her career due to legal difficulties and health issues, Locke directed the made-for-television film Death in Small Doses (1995), based on a true story, and the independent feature Trading Favors (1997), starring Rosanna Arquette.

Memoir and final projects

In 1997, Locke's autobiography The Good, the Bad, and the Very Ugly: A Hollywood Journey was published by William Morrow and Company. In it she called Eastwood "a completely evil, manipulating, lying excuse for a man." Eastwood's lawyers sent a warning letter to the publisher, and although no slander charges arose, Entertainment Tonight canceled a scheduled interview with Locke. She was also bumped from The Oprah Winfrey Show and, in her words, "shut out of most venues to promote the book, in particular the networks." The book received a supportive rave review from New York Daily News writer Liz Smith, while Entertainment Weekly's Dana Kennedy dismissed the book as a "peculiar, not terribly consequential, life story."

Locke told a Spanish website that she'd been informed Entertainment Weekly originally planned to publish a positive review, but for reasons unclear, it was pulled and a negative review appeared instead. The Advocate, a monthly LGBT-interest magazine, was set to do a big article on Locke's book; suddenly and uncharacteristically, Eastwood gave The Advocate an interview, and they decided not to run the piece. She reflected in 2012: "Clint has said so many bad things about me to the media since we split up, and he has so much more access and power to do that. He's said things that were hurtful to my character and hurtful to me professionally." Locke was nonetheless grateful to have a platform at all, stating: "It was a miracle that a major publisher took it."

After 13 years away from acting, Locke returned to the screen in 1999 with cameo roles in the straight-to-video films The Prophet's Game with Dennis Hopper and Clean and Narrow with Wings Hauser. In 2014, it was announced that Locke would serve as an executive producer on the Eli Roth film Knock Knock, starring Keanu Reeves. She came out of retirement once more in 2016, shooting Alan Rudolph's indie Ray Meets Helen with Keith Carradine. The film was screened at Laemmle Music Hall on May 6, 2018, less than six months before Locke died.

Philanthropy

During her tenure at WSM, Locke participated in the annual United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) telethons. One year, she toured Birmingham with folk singer Richard Law.

In 1992, Locke served as honorary chairwoman for the "Starry, Starry Night" silent auction in Costa Mesa, California to benefit 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 it is to change one's life," Locke said.

Personal life

Marriage

On September 25, 1967, Locke married sculptor Gordon Leigh Anderson (born August 2, 1944, Batesville, Arkansas) at the First Presbyterian Church in Nashville, one week after The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter commenced principal photography. Dr. Walter Rowe Courtenay presided over the ceremony. They remained married for 51 years until her death in 2018.

Chief Dan George with Locke and Eastwood at a barbecue in Santa Fe, New Mexico promoting The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)

Life with Eastwood

Chief Dan George with Locke and Eastwood at a barbecue in Santa Fe, New Mexico promoting The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)

Locke and actor/director Clint Eastwood entered a domestic partnership in October 1975. She first met Eastwood in 1972 when she unsuccessfully lobbied for the title role in his film Breezy (1973). After wrapping the film in December 1975, the couple shuttled between Eastwood's houses in Sherman Oaks and Carmel, as well as rented homes in San Francisco and Tiburon. They eventually settled at 846 Stradella Road in Bel-Air, which Eastwood still owned at the time of Locke's death.

Eastwood was married during the early years of their relationship, before their affair became public in 1978, but his marriage was a nominal one just as Locke's was.

Eastwood and Locke were still cohabiting when, in the latter half of the 1980s, he secretly fathered another woman's two children – a fact that did not come to light for almost 20 years. Despite her affirmed ignorance, Locke sensed growing tension in the relationship around 1985.

In 1989, she filed a $70 million palimony suit. During their 14 years as de facto husband and wife, Locke and Eastwood had lived in seven homes and acquired four, including a retreat in Sun Valley, Idaho, and the Rising River Ranch near Cassel. Locke sought half of Eastwood's earnings and an equal division of property, requesting title to the house in Bel-Air and to the Gothic-style West Hollywood place Eastwood had leased to Gordon Anderson since 1982.

Locke battled Eastwood in court for 19 months. In November 1990, the parties reached a private settlement wherein Eastwood set up a $1.5 million multiyear film development/directing pact for Locke at Warner Bros. in exchange for dropping the suit. She was awarded the West Hollywood property (valued at $2.2 million), $450,000 cash and unspecified monthly support payments as well.

The breakup affected Locke's social life. Her closest friends had been the wives of Eastwood's colleagues: Maria Shriver, Cynthia Sikes Yorkin and Lili Fini Zanuck, all 10–11 years younger than Locke and married to film industry heavyweights Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bud Yorkin and Richard D. Zanuck respectively. Locke's friendships with those women gradually faded as their husbands ghosted her.

Illness and later years

A lifelong nonsmoker (save for a few film roles), Locke practiced Transcendental Meditation and worked out with weights, though she hated running. In September 1990, she confirmed reports that she had breast cancer.

Locke underwent a double mastectomy at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, followed by chemotherapy.

In February 2001, Locke purchased a six-bedroom gated mansion in the Hollywood Hills, where she resided for the remainder of her life. Built in 1925, the home's interior was redesigned to look like Locke's old house on Stradella Road.

In 2015, after a 25-year period of apparent remission, Locke's cancer returned and metastasized to her bones.

Death

Locke died at age 74 on November 3, 2018, at her Los Angeles home from cardiac arrest related to breast and bone cancer. Her remains were cremated on November 9 at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary and the ashes were given to her widower, Gordon Anderson. Locke bequeathed Anderson an estimated fortune of $20 million, and seemed to have always supported him financially.

Legacy

Locke in 1961, age 17, the year before she started dyeing her hair blonde

Locke (far left) with neighbors Nancy Brantley, Helen Young and Louise Davenport, c. 1958

Locke is remembered as an early pioneer for women in Hollywood. She was one of 11 female filmmakers in 1990, the year WB released her sophomore feature, Impulse. By the time of Trading Favors (1997), her fourth effort, still only eight percent of all films were made by women, per the Directors Guild of America.

Locke's influence as a feminist icon was duly acknowledged by the mainstream press.

Cinematographer David Worth credits Locke with his big break. She is admired by such actresses as Frances Fisher and Rosanna Arquette, who applauded the strength of her directorial accomplishments, however short-lived.

Our Very Own

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 pretend "auditions" in the class to show them what it was like in Hollywood. One student, Cameron Watson, was inspired by Locke and is now an actor/director. Watson's period drama Our Very Own (2005) takes place in Shelbyville in 1978 and concerns a group of teenagers who want to meet Locke when she returns to town for the local premiere of Every Which Way but Loose. Watson decided to do the movie after performing a standup routine about Locke and about how people in Shelbyville were obsessed with her. Locke attended one of those performances in 2004 at the Tiffany Theater in West Hollywood. "The minute she heard the first reference to her or to her family, she threw up her arms: 'What the hell is this?'" Watson said. "By the end of the reading, she was doubled over." Locke gave the script her blessing and accepted an invitation to be special guest at the film's premiere. The movie was a "special gift" to Locke, according to Deborah Obenchain, another Eastside student who said she did not think Locke really understood her impact on the small town she once called home. "I think it meant just as much to her. … In our own way … we got to live out a little bit of our dreams by making the movie and meeting her."

Filmography

As actress

As director

Stage

See also

In Spanish: Sondra Locke para niños

• List of American film actresses
• List of female film and television directors
• List of Middle Tennessee State University people
• List of people from Los Angeles
• List of people from Tennessee