Sondra Locke
Sandra Louise Anderson, professionally known as Sondra Locke, was an American actress and director.
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. She performed in the theater company Circle Players Inc. while employed at WSM. 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 and earned dual Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress and New Star of the Year.
Locke went on to appear in such box-office successes as Willard, The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Gauntlet, Every Which Way but Loose, Bronco Billy, Any Which Way You Can, and Sudden Impact. She worked regularly with Clint Eastwood, who was her companion from 1975 to 1989 despite their marriages to other people. She directed four films, notably Impulse. She published an autobiography, The Good, the Bad, and the Very Ugly: A Hollywood Journey, in 1997.
Locke's persona belied her age. She claimed to have been born several years later than 1944, often playing roles written for women far younger than herself, and kept her true age 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. From 1967 until her death, Locke was the wife of sculptor Gordon Leigh Anderson, in a mixed-orientation union they reputedly never consummated.
Background, early life and education
Sandra Louise Smith was born on May 28, 1944, the daughter of New York City native Raymond Smith, then a soldier stationed at Camp Forrest, 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, "although Momma would not admit it, I knew Mr. Smith never married my mother." She had a maternal half-brother, Donald, 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. She was raised a Baptist, but stopped going to church as an adult.Locke was a cheerleader and class valedictorian in junior high, as well as editor-in-chief of The Royal yearbook and a star player on the girls' basketball team. From 1958, she attended Shelbyville Central High School, where she again served as valedictorian and was voted "Duchess of Studiousness" by classmates. She continued to play basketball at SCHS, served as parent–teacher–student association representative, and was president of the French club. Regardless, she was not considered "date material" by the more socially prominent boys in her class. Locke's first beau, according to locals' reminiscences, was Fred Thomas Jones, a carpenter's son. Her graduation yearbook listed her grade average 97.72% and her ambition "always to take disappointments with a smile." In 1962, Locke matriculated at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro on a full scholarship. Majoring in theatre, 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 or stepfather, 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 receptionist in a real-estate office. For a time, she lived at South Water Apartments 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 he 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, Alabama, 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. Locke lied about her age, shaving off six years to make herself seem younger—a pretense she would keep up not only for the rest of her career, but also the entirety of her public life. After callbacks in New Orleans and Manhattan, she was cast in the role by recommendation from entertainment coordinator Marion Dougherty. The film's shooting wrapped in the fall of 1967. Locke, who had quit her post at WSM, opted to wait until its release before choosing a follow-up project. In the nine-month interim, she was asked to play the female protagonists in True Grit and Michelangelo Antonioni's Zabriskie Point. She said she turned down the former on the grounds that it was too similar to the role she had just done, and the latter because of the nudity required.By 1968, advertising for Heart was prolific; the film came out that summer to critical acclaim but only modest grosses. 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 this distinction through retconning with aid from studio publicists. At a film exhibitor convention in Kansas City, she won the Show-A-Rama Award from the Motion Picture Association of America as "Most Promising New Star of the Year". Although her salary for the film was reported as $15,000 in contemporary articles, Locke later claimed it was less than one-third that amount.
Commercial ups and downs, missed roles, TV work
Hoping to shed the plain image she had accentuated in her screen debut, in January 1969 Locke posed for a seminude Lady Godiva-ish pictorial by photographer Frank Bez, which was published in the December issue of Playboy. The Playboy layout established Locke's status as a sex symbol, and the images were recycled in other men's magazines as her fame increased. Nearly three decades later, Locke said she still got those photos in fan mail requesting her autograph.Her next role was as Melisse in Cover Me Babe, 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 materialized. 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, but her management turned it down without telling her. Shortly afterwards, she passed on the lead in My Sweet Charlie, which won an Emmy for its eventual star Patty Duke. She also declined the part of Bruce Dern's pregnant wife in They Shoot Horses, Don't They?. Projects Locke actively pursued but got rejected for included The Sterile Cuckoo and Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon, with directors Alan J. Pakula and Otto Preminger both choosing Liza Minnelli instead.
File:David carradine sondra locke kung fu 1974.JPG|thumb|left|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, which required her to project the image of a character half her age, and held the title role in first-time director Michael Barry's avant garde drama The Second Coming of Suzanne, 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 accrued 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-based film 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. Plans emerged for Locke to star in the Civil War extravaganza John Brown's Body, based on the epic poem by Stephen Vincent Benét, with Pandro S. Berman producing. It too failed to move into production. She was up for a big part in Earthquake, but lost out to Geneviève Bujold.
Locke guest starred on top-rated television drama series throughout the first half of the 1970s, including The F.B.I., Cannon, 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, a racially themed, three-character PBS teleplay co-starring her real-life significant other at the time, 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."