Hollywood actress, director and producer Sondra Locke died on November 3, 2018, but the news remained a secret for weeks.
To this day no one knows why the death of Locke – one of the few women behind the camera in the male-dominated film industry of the 1980s – was delayed until the middle of December of that year.
Locke was best known for the six films she made with legendary Hollywood actor Clint Eastwood – whom she dated for 13 years – starting with the Western The Outlaw Josey Wales in 1976 and ending with the Dirty Harry movie Sudden Impact in 1983.
Sondra Locke, right, with Clint Eastwood in the crime thriller The Gauntlet. (Public Domain)
Born Sandra Louise Smith, she took her stepfather’s surname, before gaining her first big break in 1967 when she won a a nationwide talent search for a major role in the movie adaptation of Carson McCullers’ 1940 novel The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.
She earned rave reviews for the role along with nominations for a Golden Globe and an Oscar.
Locke then had a run of unmemorable film and TV roles until meeting Eastwood on the set of Josey Wales, which he both directed and starred in.
Her career would mirror his for the next several years. The pair’s hit films also included the 1978 street-fighting and orangutan comedy Every Which Way But Loose and its 1980 sequel Any Which Way You Can.
Locke also played singer Rosemary Clooney in a 1982 TV biopic, and directed the 1986 film Ratboy, which flopped in the US but was popular with critics in Europe.
Sondra Locke, right, starred in: The Rosemary Clooney Story, a made for TV movie, in 1982. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images) (CBS via Getty Images)
In 1989, Locke’s charmed career came to an end as Eastwood broke up with her, she later wrote. The locks were changed and her belongings were placed outside a home she thought had been a gift from Eastwood.
The pair entered a bitter legal battle that was not settled until 1996.
The break-up proved a hammer blow for Locke’s career, with her claiming she was blacklisted by Hollywood power brokers.
She was not included in the “In Memoriam” section of the Oscars in 2019, and Eastwood made no public comment on her death from bone cancer
Locke, 74, died at her Los Angeles home of cardiac arrest stemming from bone cancer, according to her death certificate.
Sondra Locke died from bone cancer in 2018, but news of her passing was delayed six weeks.. (AP Photo/John Hayes) (AP)
Authorities were promptly notified at the time, but her death was not publicised until six weeks later by a US media outlet.
Locke was not part of the “In Memoriam” section of the Oscars in 2019, and Eastwood made no public comment on her death.