Career
In 1967, Locke won a nationwide talent search for the role of Mick Kelly in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. The film was released in 1968, and her performance garnered her the Academy Award nomination, as well as two Golden Globe Award nominations (one for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture and the other for Most Promising Newcomer). Despite this early success, it was eight years before Locke had another notable film role.
In the early 1970s, she appeared in such independent films including Willard (1971) and The Second Coming of Suzanne (1974). She also guest starred on several television shows, including Barnaby Jones and Kung Fu. In the 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.
In 1976, Locke played the supporting role of a pioneer woman who falls in love with the eponymous character in The Outlaw Josey Wales. This marked the first of six collaborations with Eastwood. With Eastwood as her leading man, Locke went on to star in a number of box-office hits. She played a foul-mouthed prostitute on the run from the mob in the action film The Gauntlet (1977), a spoiled heiress who joins a traveling Wild West show in Bronco Billy (1980), a country singer in the comedy Every Which Way But Loose (1978) and its sequel, Any Which Way You Can (1980), and a revenge-seeking murderess in the highest-grossingDirty Harry film, Sudden Impact (1983).
Locke made her directing debut with the comedy film Ratboy (1986) and later directed the critically acclaimed thriller Impulse (1990). She later directed the television film Death in Small Doses (1995) and the low-budget independent film Do Me A Favor (1997).
After 13 years away from acting, she returned in two little-exposed independent films in 1999. Locke has not worked in the film industry since then.
Read more about this topic: Sondra Locke
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