‘Willard’s Sondra Locke Dies at 74

Oscar-nominated actress Sondra Locke has reportedly passed away at the age of 74.

Locke reportedly died on November 3rd, 2018, news that was not made public until over a month later, when Radar Online obtained her death certificate from the Los Angeles Department of Public Health. According to the death certificate, Locke passed away due to cardiac arrest from breast and bone cancer.

Locke had famously beaten breast cancer in the 1990s, culminating her having a double mastectomy. She had been battling bone cancer for the past three years.

Born Sandra Louise Smith, Locke broke into the acting world in 1967, when she won a talent search to star alongside Alan Arkin in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. The film ultimately earned Locke an Academy Award nomination, as well as a pair of Golden Globe nominations.

Locke had a pretty storied filmography over the years, which became intertwined with Clint Eastwood’s starting in 1975. The pair struck a romantic relationship, which led to Locke only appearing in films alongside him for quite some time, aside from 1977’s Shadow of Chikara.

“[Eastwood] is like the emperor. He always had his own company store,” Locke told The Washington Post in 1997. “If you were in Clint Eastwood movies, you were in the Clint Eastwood movie business. You weren’t in the movie business. You weren’t part of Hollywood. This became clear early on; people stopped calling. They automatically assumed I was working exclusively with Clint.”

In 1989, Locke filed a palimony lawsuit against Eastwood, after he locked her out of their house. That lawsuit was settled a year later, in exchange for a development and directing deal for Locke at Warner Bros. This led to several more lawsuits in 1995 and 1999, in which Locke accused Eastwood and Warner Bros. of fraud.

Locke’s other filmography includes Willard, Amazing Stories, Tales of the Unexpected, and the Planet of the Apes TV show.