Sandra Locke R.I.P.

Very little was said when former Clint Eastwood ingenue passed away. Not much call for mass (phony) condolences. Very few probably even knew her.
I read her biography which, let's face it, if it weren't for Clint Eastwood, she'd not have gotten the opportunities she'd gotten. A willowly blonde that practically haunted all of the late 60's via Cybil Sheperd or Twiggy, she seemed to have just enough of the right features to be fine in Hollywood (in the 60's, girls who looked like hippie free love seemed to permeate the screen), since "Easy Rider" blasted the more mature stately woman. Girlish waifs became pretty popular. And at that point most studios were failing, so why not give the people what they wanted.

Much of her book was dedicated to her career post Eastwood. Which didn't seem like much. It seemed, perhaps too presumptuous of me to say, that she felt a little sidetracked by Eastwood's steady climb to stardom that put the brakes on her own acting. Consider she IS an Academy Award nominated actress in "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter." Afterwards, she did appear in many of Eastwood's honky tonk flicks he was so earnest to make.

I think the role I most remember her for is "The Gauntlet." This is an incredibly underrated film, probably because it was Eastwood playing a cop but he wasn't playing Dirty Harry. In this case, he was a washed out drunken cop who was assigned to drag a hooker to testify against a high profile government official (guess who the hooker was). In the film, Locke played a really tough cookie. Able to zing Eastwood better than most. She took a lot of verbal assaults as well (something tells me, most of Eastwood's films are about how he did his family wrong or his disposable attitude towards women, though they still love him). "The Gauntlet" is essentially a duo "Warriors" flick that has them being attacked as they try to get to trial. Wonderful stuff.

Anyway, though brief was her career (all things considered for importance), I think she is part of cinema history.