WASHINGTON (AFP).- Oscar-nominated actress Sondra Locke has died of cancer at the age of 74, US news outlets reported Thursday night.

Locke died November 3 in California, the reports said, quoting a celebrity news website, Radar Online. She had been battling breast and bone cancer.

The Los Angeles County Public Health Department confirmed her death, Variety magazine reported.

Locke was also known for her decade-long personal and professional relationship with Clint Eastwood.

She was nominated for the Oscar for best supporting actor for her role in an adaptation of the Carson McCullers novel "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" in 1968. It was Locke's first movie.

"I had never been on a movie set," she told Variety in 1978, "but it was like coming home."

Locke got a big break in 1976 when she played the love interest of Eastwood in "The Outlaw Josey Wales."

Eastwood and Locke were professional and romantic partners for the next 13 years.

Locke acted almost exclusively opposite him in such films as "The Gauntlet," "Every Which Way But Loose," "Any Which Way You Can," and "Sudden Impact."

Locke later got into directing and she and Eastwood had a bitter split in 1989 that was marked by legal battles.


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