Clint Eastwood’s Longtime Partner Sondra Locke Dead At 74

Oh that’s sad. I enjoyed everything she acted in. A Reflection of Fear was a creepy horror flick back in 1972.

Sad--very bright lady, also a director.

Clint Eastwood treated her like shit, even more so than most of the women in his life.

Anyone see her in "A Reflection of Fear" (1972)? Not a great movie, but she's quite good in her disturbing role.

I always liked her. She was a friend to the gays.

She should be...her husband is gay!

Heart Is A Lonely Hunter is one of my all time fave films and she was superb as Mick. A real breakthrough role.

I think Clint is bi not gay

Her husband, Gordon Anderson, is gay...not Clint.

If she married a gay man then she's a lesbian and her other relationships have been also fake

Locke explained in her autobiography: "Before I had met Clint my gynecologist had suggested and fitted for me an IUD. Because my sex life was not very active, he did not think I should be constantly taking birth control pills. Clint complained of the IUD – it was uncomfortable for him, he said. And he too was not in favor of birth control pills, so he suggested a special clinic at Cedars Hospital where they taught a 'natural' method of birth control. It was the same 'rhythm' system that historically has been used to determine the fertile days for those who are attempting to achieve pregnancy. Of course, it could be used for the opposite results as well. Not only was I taught their method but I was constantly monitored with regular pregnancy checks. The whole process was awkward and entailed taking my temperature every morning and marking the calendar, etc. It was demanding and ultimately it had failed twice.

Her roles were always brash and gutsy, i see why Clint liked her.She will go to that big Gun Moll cemetery in the sky.

Gordon Anderson said this about Clint Eastwood: Personal Quote: [on Clint Eastwood] Clint is a sociopath; I don't think there is another explanation for the way he treats everyone. He cares for no one. I know it's a hard thing to accept but he's completely unevolved as a human being; he believes in nothing - he's a zero. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but that is it. He needs therapy.

R12 It's all true.

Awww sad.

I read her memoir and she had a lot of problems with Clint. And she had a great gay male best friend. Nice lady and may she Rest In Peace.

Sandra.

Her performance in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter was very moving. Alan Arkin’s was, too. It’s a fine old film.

Sandra played singer Rosemary Clooney in a TV movie.

I can't envision her being gay. There'd be rumors at some point in time and there aren't any.

Gordon was her life long best friend. He must be devastated.

I liked her in The Gauntlet. But always thought she was homely. But I never found Clint attractive so they kind of made sense back then.

Sondra and Gordon

Jane Brolin (James's ex, Josh's mom) was another one who screwed her over. Pretending to be her friend while she was fucking Clint, too.

Jane was a nasty piece of work.

Loved her - real talent and yes a true friend to the gays. Can’t understand why Clint strung her along for years, controlling, abusive, obsessed with her not having his child yet fooling around and getting those other women pregnant. Why? Do sociopaths detect what a person truly wants and then withhold it as a means of control?

[quote]Clint complained of the IUD – it was uncomfortable for him, he said.

Is that a real thing? I thought the IUD went way up in there, far past the point where you could feel it.

R23 I think Jane more or less admitted she was much better with animals than with people.

From the obit: "After their relationship came to a halt, Locke filed a palimony suit in 1989 against Eastwood. She later agreed to drop the suit when Eastwood set up a $1.5 million deal with Warner Bros. for her to develop films"

What it didn't say: "After she dropped the suit and agreed to the WB deal, Clint fucked her over by making sure that time would run out before she'd ever be allowed to direct a film."

Even after they broke up he treated her like shit. He even went out of his way to do it.

She had an affair with Eastward's while he was married. So why would she be shocked when he cheated on her?

Fair skinned blondes generally don't age well but Sondra looked good.

[quote]It was demanding and ultimately it had failed twice.

So she's saying she aborted twice? Why didn't she have the babies, then get some ca$h out of that bastard Clint?

What I don't understand about so many of these actresses, surely they hear enough gossip to not get involved with certain actors, yet they still do. Are the connections really worth it, for Sondra they sure didn't seem to be.

Very sad news. Sondra Locke's untimely death is proof that there is not justice in the world. She should have outlived that prick Eastwood.

Sondra and Graham look like siblings. RIP Sondra. Best wishes to Graham in his bereavement.

That movie she directed starring Theresa Russell was pretty good.

VALE Sondra. A gutsy, brave woman who fought for what was hers. He knew her worth I just wish she had added tax to it... the one things i always remember from her book was whenever Clint The Twisted wanted to fuck her he asked he if she flossed her teeth....

Sondra Locke's claim that her ex, Clint Eastwood, was in the habit of asking, 'Sweetie, did you floss?', as a prelude to sex.

that's a pitiful come on clint.....

to say he treated her like shit is an understatement. then again, that's his MO with women.....

R33 Yes, I agree. It was called Impulse. Another goodie she directed was Ratboy.

Poor Sondra didn't even get her death noticed without it having to do with Clint. She died over a month ago, on Nov 3rd apparently. The AP reported her death after having looked up her death certificate - I'm guessing they went looking for her for comment after the splashy news this week that Eastwood has yet another love child, a woman given up for adoption before he was famous. She made a first public appearance with him at his movie premiere a few nights ago, with the entire family, and the DM ran a big headline story about them.

When they couldn't find her for comment they probably asked around and found she had died, checked it out at vital records, then reported it.

^ wow, wonder if Eastwood and the studios had news of her death buried before the release of his new film?

I loved Friendships, Secrets, and Lies with her and Stella Stevens, Paula Prentiss, Tina Louise, Loretta Swit, Cathryn Damon, and Shelley Fabares.

Strange it never was released by her husband or manager. Kind of like Beth Howland. Unsure why these two wouldn’t want it to come out? It’s going to happen sooner or later if you’re a celebrity. What difference does it make if you’re dead?

"Fair skinned blondes generally don't age well but Sondra looked good."

Sharon Stone looks fantastic.

Valedictorian of her class at Shelbyville High, but didn't attend college. Went straight to Hollywood. Never that pretty in the face but had fantastic legs.

"She attended Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro but did not graduate. Early on she worked for a Nashville television station, did modeling and voice-over work, acted in community theater."

She had an unusual face but in a good way. Beautiful woman with a voice like silk.

Doubtful r37. He may have not even known about it. I doubt he or his family kept in touch with her. She'd been out of the limelight for some time so perhaps her surviving friends didn't think to make a press announcement. She may have refused that.

I think there was all the recent hullabaloo this week re Eastwood's newfound 'child' (it's like a never-ending conga line it seems), and someone in the press thought to look up Locke to find out what was up with her (perhaps for an article on his love life) or get a quote. And found out she had passed.

Sociopaths can’t be helped.

R44 - would have thought it made the news. She was a highly visible celeb in the 70s through mid 80s...albeit on Eastwood’s coattails but no one denied her talent.

So it seems as though she married this guy in the 1960s and never divorced him. How does that play out vis a vis her palimony suit with Clint? Anyone know any different?

Wow, Judy Greer could play her in a movie. The resemblance is stunning.

R47 - I’m sure it played a not insubstantial role. In the end Clint settled to avoid further negative publicity. I loved her late 60s waif/gamine/fairy look, paired well with the gay blonde, preppy husband. They were both smart talented kids desperate to escape Tennessee, and platonically clung to each other on the journey. Very Southern Gothic.

Wasn't Clint someone's butt boy, and that is why he had a career?

Gordon made the dress Sondra wore to the 1968 Oscars.

Wow! They do look like siblings...

Judy Greer would be great in a Sondra bio!

Unfortunately, most bios star performers who look nothing like the celebrities they're portraying.

I recently saw the film "Impulse " directed by Locke and starring Theresa Russell . I thought it was a pretty solid thriller. RIP Sondra.

“Impulse” is a fine film that got buried by WB after the Eastwood suit. Theresa Russell is excellent in it.

I was traumatized as a child by Locke’s appearance on “Night Gallery” with the amazing Norman Lloyd (who is still with us!). Really creepy episode.

“The Hollywood Reporter” has been (rightfully) criticized — its initial obituary of Locke carried the headline, “Actress Sondra Locke, Embittered Ex of Clint Eastwood, Dies at 74”. Basically diminishing the fact that she was on Oscar-nominated actress before she met Eastwood. Sad.

R55 The HR kissing Eastwood’s ass. No denying Clint’s star power but he always seemed like the ultimate asshole. While filming Impulse, he put all of Sondras belongings in a storage lot when they broke up. What kind of douchebag does that?! I’m glad she didn’t lie down for him and sued his ass. Hope she got a hefty sum.

I understand he treated her very badly.

Too bad her legacy is tainted by association with Eastwood. He's a mean creep. Went on to have several more children while denying her.

His taste in women is somewhat odd. Francis Fisher was the strangest looking one.

I don't think Sondra ever wanted kids and knew even before she was with Clint that it wasn't for her. She was quoted as saying early in her career that "I'd feel sorry for any child that had me for a mother,".

Either way, Clint treated her abysmally and even if she was bitter about it, she had good cause. He went out of his way to sabotage her career.

I thought it was interesting that Frances Fisher sent out a supportive tweet about Sondra. Apparently they were friends.

R59 I agree. Clint is a mean spirited control freak, but I never quite bought her insistence that he "forced " her to have 2 abortions and a sterilization. That's not possible in this country, not even in the 1970s. I think her extreme passivity and his controlling personality meshed very badly though.

IIRC, Clint wanted Frances to abort but she stood up to him.

R61, Clint may not have employed physical coercion to compel her to terminate her pregnancies but psychological coercion is real and an extremely powerful weapon deployed by abusers to gain their victims’ compliance. Sondra may well have felt that she had no choice. He may have threatened to break up with her, harm her career, and so on.

I always liked her and thought she had an interesting presence.

Fisher got treated like shit too by Clint. She wrote a open letter after OJ was acquitted about how men can get away with anything, no matter how heinous their behavior. It got a lot of press at the time, but it most likely damaged her career as well.

r55 holy fuck. I hope someone screen capped that for the record. That's pathetic.

Here you go, R55 — someone in the article screen grabbed the original embarrassing headline.

I mean R65! I’M R55!

Bump

I thought she was hella cool! RIP Sondra!!!

Sondra was from that era where there were some many one of a kind actresses. The 'actresses' in recent times are all dreary clones.

Men can absolutely compel women to have an abortion. And if they can't they just straight up murderer them. Clint Eastwood looks just like my dad and he still makes me hate him. That and him singing at the end of Gran Torino.

R70 is soooooooo right. I had a brief glimmer of that in Gaga in ASIB, but nope. Gaga canNOT act compared to this era. The 70’s truly produced some unique talent, and beauties too! Part of the problem today is simply all the cosmetic surgeries and alternations to people’s natural faces. We’ve lost those subtle, nuanced shifts in facial planes, bumps in noses, a natural smile with the (gasp) horrors of actual naso-labial folds!!!! And God help you if you have a significant epithelial fold or forehead wrinkles, you might as well go work for the Sanitation Department.

Now, sun damage must always be removed, no one wants to see that. But all the actors of the 70’s had faces with fucking character. Can you imagine what the would have done to SL if she was an upcoming actress now? Blue contacts, spray tan, hair extensions, big titties.

They would also have whittled down her nose.

Frances Fisher must not have anything to fear from Eastwood anymore to send out that supportive tweet for Sondra.

Shouldn't we DLers treat Clint the way we treat many female celebs? "WHAT'S WRONG WITH HIM? HE CAN'T KEEP A WOMAN!!!"

The official word just came out that Sandra Locke died from a cardiac arrest.

Cardiac arrest from the damage done by the cancer treatments -- the same thing that got Kara Kennedy.

Eastwood sounds like an awful person, but he's had children by five or is it now six different women and he kept relationships going with more than one of them after they had the kid. He may have told Locke to get the abortions or tubal ligations, but she could have said "no"--that she didn't is on her. I think she must not have wanted kids to have gone through with a tubal ligation. It's not like she adopted later. Her real anger seems to have been over how he thwarted her career--that was her real focus from the sounds of it.

You sound like a real peach there r78. “Ohhh, if he really raped her, why did she wait 25 years to tell anyone?” Are you one of “those”? Just asking....

I don't buy what's on the death certificate. I'm pretty sure she was murdered by a sudden Charley Horse.

Sondra truly believed that she and Clint would be together for the rest of their lives. It was foolish of her but all of us have made foolish choices because we thought we were in love.

I always thought that there was an air of intelligence about her, even in the films that she made with you know who where she played bimbos.

You can see it in this picture, in her eyes (with one of DL faves Sally Kirkland).

Didn’t she starred in a film so recently, and directed by the always-interesting Alan Rudolph!

Sondra really had an incredible story. She and her gay bff came from Shelbyville,TN to LA. They conned their way into winning the leading role in 'The Heart is a Lonely Hunter' which got Sondra nominated for an Oscar.

Weren’t there rape charges? Gave me rape fantasies about Clint Eastwood.

R84, did Sondra tell that story in her biography? I'd be interested to learn more about her.

I just got off the phone with my partner who told me a story about a director friend of his who visited Warner Brothers years ago. He was in a meeting and heard a huge commotion outside. Apparently Clint was enraged that someone had parked in his reserved parking space. Clint took a baseball bat to the person's car. Sondra had a lucky escape, sounds like.

You should read her biography. Sondra and Gordon sound like people I'd love to hang out with.

Has Clint released a statement?

R88 No he hasn't and won't, either.

Since their break-up, he's done all he can to erase her from his personal and professional history. Even though they lived together for over a decade and she co-starred with him in several hit films.

I'm glad she's finally getting some due, although it's too bad it couldn't have happened while she was still alive to see it.

Is Clint a homophobe? Did he force Sondra to abort because she was tainted by the gay and he didn't want his kids to be around Gordon?

R90 who knows what went through his stupid mind? If anyone can talk to a chair like him, I wouldn’t put anything past him. She learned the hard way she was too intertwined with him. She really should’ve made more movies apart from him when they were together. He made some sick comment when she had her breast cancer that she was using it to her advantage. Fuck him. She sued his ass and I bet he was shocked by that one that she stood up to him. Never give your significant other an inordinate amount of power in any relationship.

R89 How she's finally getting some due ??

R92 Most of it was for standing up to Clint and power players in the business, but others have acknowledged her talent also.

R93 Good! It would have been better if this was acknowledged during her life.