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Sondra Locke: a charismatic performer defined by a toxic relationship with Clint Eastwood

posted 5 years ago by Satan2016 (23309)
4 replies | jump to latest

This covers some of her career and a bit about the legal contest.

Nobody seems to mention her first movie, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, which I saw long ago. She did 14 movies and some TV between 1968 and 1986. I don't even remember Planet of the Apes TV series.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/dec/14/sondra-locke-a-charismatic-performer-defined-by-a-toxic-relationship-with-clint-eastwood

Sondra Locke was an actor, producer, director and talented singer. But it was her destiny to be linked forever with Clint Eastwood, whose partner she was from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s. She was a sexy, charismatic performer with a tough, lean look who starred alongside Eastwood in hit movies like The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Gauntlet, Every Which Way But Loose (in which she sang her own songs — also for the sequel Any Which Way You Can) and Bronco Billy. But the pair became trapped in one of the most notoriously toxic relationships in Hollywood history, an ugly, messy and abusive overlap of the personal and professional — a case of love gone sour and mentorship gone terribly wrong.

Locke was already married when she met Eastwood — to a gay sculptor called Gordon Leigh Anderson, with whom she had a platonic relationship. She never divorced him and the marriage was still legal throughout her relationship with Eastwood, a fact which undoubtedly counted against her in their painful . She became a test case and talking-point in America’s sexual politics debate when she sued Eastwood twice, once for “palimony” after their relationship acrimoniously ended, and then a second time for fraud, alleging that the project-development deal Eastwood subsequently set up for her was a trick, designed to buy off the palimony suit and which resulted in no directing jobs. She claimed she had been thrown out of her house by the man she thought was the love of her life. It could well be that Locke was the victim of macho mind games, and her case was an eerie echo of the critic Pauline Kael who was suckered into (temporarily) quitting her job at the New Yorker by Warren Beatty for a similarly unproductive production deal.

Obit: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/dec/14/sondra-locke-obituary

[–] ducksoup (3933) 4 years ago

That sucks. I really liked her movies when I was a kid. Even with Clint Eastwood in them.

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

I cringe when people claim that someone was suckered into a unproductive production deal... Most all those production deals are very precisely structured, they may include office space at the studios or they may not, they may include a certain amount of expenses covered by the studio or not, everything is negotiable and if someone is stupid enough to accept one that doesn't give them what they are looking of then they weren't suckered they were just stupid.

Now remember this is Hollywood where people making movies would film their mama being murdered if it was profitable enough... which means even if they don't like Sondra Locke, even if they hate her with a passion... if she develops a movie that is good enough that the studios believe it will make them lots of money they they will back it... but what they will not do is spend money on a project that is weak and that they feel isn't going to make money.

[–] whynotwriteme (7120) 4 years ago

I don't think she would have accomplished much without Eastwood, to tell the truth. She didn't have the chops to be a leading lady on her own. Not much of a personality, and while pretty, she had kind of off-beat looks that don't get an actress many roles unless her boyfriend is a mega-star. She would have stayed in TV guest roles probably until the mid or late 80s, then faded away.

[–] Enigmaticocean77 (2122) 3 years ago

This sounds more plausible than what the original poster wrote. She was an okay actress, an okay singer, and she was good looking, but did not possess blockbuster actress good looks. In my opinion she didn't really have the "it" factor to become a blockbuster star. Also, going by the original post it would seem like her entire life was swindled by Clint. This is simply not true. She chose to marry a gay man who didn't touch her, she chose to have an affair with Clint, she chose to stay married the entire time. Those were her choices- not Clint's. I'm not saying that Clint is innocent in all of this, but we all have to take responsibility for our choices in life, and the original poster seems to point the blame for her not becoming an A list star/director on Clint, and that is certainly not the case. If anything, her relationship with one of the most powerful actor/directors that has ever lived gave her more fame and opportunities than she ever would have had without him.