For some casual movie fans, little is known about Sondra Locke beyond her connection to Clint Eastwood, her long-term boyfriend and frequent collaborator. While she was busy putting together a strong career, which included earning an Academy Award nomination for her acting debut in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and directing four films, Eastwood loomed over many of her achievements. And her relationship with the For a Few Dollars More star was not the only difficult chapter of her life.

It seemed that at every step along the way, Locke was met by a new obstacle to deal with and a new challenge to overcome. In her quest to achieve great success in Tinsel Town, she found herself at odds against her family, the industry, and, yes, Eastwood. In the end, she led a rather remarkable life that should have stood out on its own. She endured threats to her career, her livelihood, and even her life, but Locke’s legacy remains shrouded by the larger-than-life persona and name of her former significant other.

Here are some of the tragic details about Clint Eastwood’s ex-girlfriend, Sondra Locke.Sondra Locke was born in Tennessee as Sandra Smith. According to The Independent, her father was a soldier who was out of the picture before she was born. Her last name was later changed to that of her stepfather’s, Alfred Locke. She also took on the stage name, Sondra. As a young woman, Locke had dreams of becoming an actor, but her family dissuaded her.

In her autobiography, The Good, the Bad and the Very Ugly, Locke recalls a rift growing between her and her mother for years, and at 19 years old, a fight between them gave her the push she needed to leave. She remembered her mother telling her she could “pack your bags, girl, and get outta here” if she wasn’t up for doing as she was told. So, Locke did just that, and she never looked back.

Locke wrote in her book that, in nearly 30 years, she and her mother had “a handful of conversations and short visits.” Locke would never truly reconcile with her parents, but she had no regrets. “It made no sense for any of us to spend our lives pretending to have relationships that did not really exist,” she explained in the memoir. “And even though it is my nature to feel responsible and guilty, even when I’m not significant, I never felt that way about my decision to walk away from my parents’ home.”

Sandra Locke and her ‘Prince Charming’ didn’t last : Sondra Locke met Clint Eastwood in 1975 while shooting The Outlaw Josey Wales. The two instantly fell in love. Locke embarked on a 14-year relationship with the man who, as the Los Angeles Times reported in 1996, she once believed was her “Prince Charming.” She also starred in six films with him along the way.

That said, it sounds like Locke’s time with “Prince Charming” wasn’t exactly a fairy tale. She claimed Eastwood became possessive, and when she tried to expand her career without him, he allegedly reacted negatively. “I worked exclusively with Clint,” she said in 1996 (via E!). “He didn’t like the idea of ​​me being away from him.”

Clint Eastwood starred in the television series “Rawhide,” but after his success in the foreign-produced Man With No Name hits, he still had to prove he could carry an American-made Western.Not surprisingly, that chance came quickly, since other producers were eager to cash in ASAP on the actor’s worldwide mega-fame.

“Coogan’s Bluff” was a modern Western of sorts, but a more traditional entry in the genre followed with 1968’s “Hang ‘Em High,” which Turner Classic Movies shows Friday, Jan. 8 — actually as the lead-off attraction in an all-night tribute to co-star Pat Hingle.“Hang ‘Em High” telegraphs that it will have surprises right from the opening scene, in which the central character is left for dead by a lynch mob in an impromptu hanging.

It shouldn’t be much of a spoiler to report that it doesn’t succeed, since no filmmaker in his right mind was going to kill off Clint Eastwood in the first five minutes of a movie starring him. (As it happens, the filmmaker in question was producer Leonard Freeman, who launched the original ”Hawaii Five-O” the same year; that show’s James MacArthur appears briefly here as a youthful priest.)

With quite a bruise around his neck as a reminder of his near-fate, Eastwood’s Jed Cooper is determined to even the score with those who would have killed him — including none other than the Skipper from “Gilligan’s Island,” Alan Hale Jr. — but a judge (Hingle) cautions him not to become a vigilante himself. Since Cooper was a marshal previously, he’s allowed to return to that job, giving him the means to cross paths with his assailants and pursue personal justice while also serving the needs of his badge.

The leader of the nasties, played by Ed Begley, is saved for last in revenge terms … and if “Hang ‘Em High” plays like an extended TV episode (with some movie violence thrown in), that’s not a shock. It was the first feature film directed by Ted Post, who had cut his teeth on lots of work for the home screen, including a number of “Rawhide” installments that first teamed him with Eastwood. (They would reunite again later on the first “Dirty Harry” sequel, “Magnum Force.”)

Plenty of other familiar faces pass through “Hang ‘Em High,” including Ben Johnson, Bruce Dern, Dennis Hopper and just about anyone else who wasn’t working on a John Wayne picture that month. Truly, many of the same actors tended to turn up in movie Westerns of that period. Along with Eastwood at an early stage of his superstardom, they help keep “Hang ‘Em High” edgy yet familiar, and still fresh enough that it has stayed a cable staple for many years.

At 91, Clint Eastwood shows no signs of slowing down, either as an actor or a director. With his latest film, Cry Macho — in which he does double duty as leading man and filmmaker — premiering , the Hollywood icon is reflecting on his legacy, and age, in a new interview with the Los Angeles Times.

“I don’t look like I did at 20, so what?” Eastwood says of life as a nonagenarian. “That just means there are more interesting guys you can play.”That includes Mike Milo, an ex-rodeo star and horse breeder who is the main character in Cry Macho. Eastwood says the 1970s-set Western is a film that’s been on his radar since 1988, when he was in his late 50s. “I’m too young for this,” he thought at the time. “Let me direct and we’ll get Robert Mitchum, an older dude.”

But the movie didn’t come to life until now, with Eastwood taking on the role he’d once considered himself too young play to play. “I always thought I’d go back and look at that. It was something I had to grow into,” he says. “One day, I just felt it was time to revisit it. It’s fun when something’s your age, when you don’t have to work at being older.”Indeed, not trying too hard at acting — “I never thought of acting as an intellectual sport.

You don’t want to overthink something,” he says — suits him just fine. As for directing, a line of work he initially took on because “the whole point of directing was something you can do as an older guy,” the Oscar winner says he carries on because “I just like it.” But he admits that his age has given him pause Eastwood, who recalls bagging groceries for 37 cents an hour as a youth, notes.

“Are people going to start throwing tomatoes at you? I’ve gotten to the point where I wondered if that was enough, but not to the point where I decided it was. If you roll out a few turkeys, they’ll tell you soon enough.”Elsewhere in the interview, the Unforgiven star opens up about fears he’d fall off his horse on set (he didn’t) and how Cry Macho will stream on HBO Max and hit movie theaters simultaneously. he has a bone to pick about the latter situation.

“[It’s] not my favorite thing in the world,” he says. “How that’s going to work out at all? I still don’t know.” The modern movie-watching experience may have changed _ particularly over the last year and a half — but Eastwood maintains that he has not. it,” Eastwood says. “If I’m not the same guy, I don’t want to know anything about it. I might not like the new guy. I might think, ‘What am I doing with this idiot?’”