Clint Eastwood has spent more than seven decades surrounded by some of Hollywood’s most famous faces.

But among the many people who passed through his extraordinary life, one woman became part of a chapter that was impossible to separate from his story.

Sondra Locke.

To millions of movie fans, she was the woman who appeared beside Eastwood again and again on the big screen.

But away from the cameras, their relationship became far more complicated.

Eastwood and Locke met while working together on The Outlaw Josey Wales, released in 1976.

Their chemistry didn’t remain on the movie set.

The two became partners and eventually shared both a personal life and an unusually close professional relationship.

Locke appeared opposite Eastwood in six films, including The Gauntlet, Every Which Way but Loose, Bronco Billy and Sudden Impact.

For moviegoers of that era, seeing the two together became familiar.

Eastwood was already one of Hollywood’s biggest stars — the quiet, tough screen presence audiences had followed from television westerns through the Dirty Harry years.

Locke brought something different.

Their pairing created memorable moments, but behind those movies was a relationship that became increasingly complicated.

After more than a decade together, their separation was anything but simple.

Locke filed a palimony lawsuit against Eastwood in 1989. Their legal disputes continued in the years that followed, including another lawsuit involving Warner Bros. that was eventually settled.

It was a painful ending to a relationship that had once produced six movies and years of shared life.

Locke later wrote about their relationship from her own perspective in her memoir.

She died in 2018 at age 74.

Eastwood’s life continued through more films, relationships, children, awards and an extraordinary transition from movie star to acclaimed director.

Yet when longtime fans look back at the defining chapters of his Hollywood journey, Sondra Locke remains difficult to overlook.

Not because theirs was a perfect Hollywood love story.

It wasn’t.

But because for an important stretch of Clint Eastwood’s life, the woman standing beside one of Hollywood’s most recognizable men became part of the story herself.