- In acting, you're subject to what everyone else does to you: the light someone else puts on you, the pace someone else sets for the scene, how someone else cuts you together, what they throw away and what they keep. Pretty soon you realize, 'This is great, but there must be something a little more.'
- No matter how big actors get, they always somehow think, 'Today is it -- tomorrow everybody's going to wake up and hate me.'
- As an actor, if there's a good role you can take it for the role's sake and not worry about the fact that the whole story doesn't seem to work. The actor won't get the blame for it. You'll do a good job and they'll say, 'The story stinks, but Sondra Locke was good in the part of whatever.' I look on acting as a great vacation now. You work a few weeks, get paid a lot of money and everyone pampers and takes care of you.
- Everyone always wants to type you. With me, I started out as a vulnerable waif and for many years that's all anyone ever wanted me to play.
- I've had some great parts, it's just that you're always looking for something that will take you in a different direction. People only see you in those boxes you've been most recently seen in. That way, they don't have to think or be creative.
- Women have to work twice as hard to be taken seriously. People don't stop and think how long you have been around or what you may be on your own. There is a wall. But if you just know who you are and keep plugging along, sooner or later the little crack in the wall gets bigger. Pretty soon you can put your foot through. Then you are able to emerge as yourself.
- Success is just a drop in the bucket, a grain of sand on the beach.
- Externals don't throw me. I'm like a turtle. If I don't like the going, I just pull my head in.
- I am a romantic. I want to cry when I throw out my Christmas tree, and I have a lot of feelings about magic and fantasy. I believe in elves and giants. I believe that fairy tales are nothing more than news reports of what once happened.
- Believe in yourself. People try to discourage you about the cold world outside, but it's cold everywhere. Go after what you believe in. You have to try. If you fail, you will probably end up with something better than if you never tried.
- [1968] I'm very ambitious. I'm Mount Vesuvius - with a cork in my head. I'm ready to burst. But I'm not so anxious that I'll take the first opportunity that comes along. I'm going to wait for a golden part to come along before I take it. If not golden, at least silver.
- [1978] I'm not really very ambitious or very aggressive. I won't play politics or games to get roles. And so I really work very seldom. I think I've done ten pictures in the ten years that I've been in Hollywood. Actually, I don't mind not working, but I hate doing poor material, so I'd rather not work than do something I don't like.
- People associate strength with masculinity. In this age of action movies specializing in masculine virtues, it's very difficult for an actress to play a strong woman. In the old days, Joan Crawford and Bette Davis managed to be strong and feminine simultaneously. So did Irene Dunne. The best example of all, perhaps, was Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara. They dominated the screen, but not the leading man. Actually, a strong woman adds to the masculinity of the man she is playing opposite. Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy played powerful characters to their mutual advantage. Claudette Colbert didn't dominate Clark Gable in It Happened One Night (1934). Yet she played a very strong woman. You need a strong and talented man to begin with if you hope to maintain your femininity. But I think a good many leading men confuse masculinity and strength. They're insecure about women's roles that accentuate strength.
- I think the reason actresses are taking a backseat to actors is that they're putting the wrong women on screen. They seem to put a new fashion model in a starring role every year. And being simply pretty isn't enough. It's boring. Using models in place of actresses implies that women have nothing to contribute to the screen. Acting is a profession and a special talent is involved. Films have moved away from pretty boys to actors with interesting faces. It's time they did the same thing with actresses.
- [on Ratboy (1986)] There were many times when I said to myself, 'why did I have to pick a story like this?' If I wanted to direct, why not go out and find a Top Gun (1986) and make some money? You know, something sensible. I felt I had to go for it. For me, the story had the heart of a fairy tale and the head of a morality play. I had the sense of it owning me, in some way. It swept me off with it.
- My personality, or persona or whatever, is really more in line with directing. If I had seen more women's names on the credits when I was a child - you know, 'directed by Gladys Hooper' - I think I might have drifted more in that direction.
- [on Clint Eastwood] I discovered he was a liar and a cheat who was leading a double, no, a triple if not a quadruple life, and who was terrified of being found out.
- A real marriage doesn't need those papers. But a real breakup does.
- [after winning her fraud case against Eastwood, 1996] I'll never have to work again. I don't know what I'm going to do. But I think I want to work. Clint said, 'I will never settle. I will take you to the Supreme Court.' But I stuck with it. I battled against huge odds. I feel vindicated.
- [her reaction to finding out Clint Eastwood sired another woman's children while they were still together] I just thought, 'Oh my God!' Either he changed from white to black or I had been living with somebody I didn't even know.
- Clint never really gave direction to the actors, certainly not to me. I was very much on my own. I always wondered how much better my performances might have been, had I had a director who really 'worked' with me. Certainly Clint's method of printing the first or second take didn't give me time to find all the texture of the moment.
- [on the prospect of a film version of her life] I honestly hope that it will not be made, because I fear it could fall into hands that would turn it into something ordinary, like some awful movie for television. I haven't given thought to who might possibly make a good film of it. I think it's best left as a part of my book, although so many people say that it should be a film. Unfortunately Hollywood would probably only be interested in exploiting the Clint section of the book.
- [regarding suppression of her autobiography] I was shut out of most venues to promote the book, in particular the networks. Remember, Robert A. Daly (president of WB) had, at one time, run CBS. The influence was there. I was told by my publisher that Oprah Winfrey wanted me to come on her show. As it was being scheduled, I was suddenly canceled and Clint was set to appear on the show instead. At that time, and even rarely today, Clint had almost never appeared on such a talk show. The gay magazine The Advocate was set to do a big article on my book, which was a natural because of Gordon being gay. Suddenly Clint was giving them an interview and appearing on the cover and I was out ENTIRELY. Why could they not have run both pieces if indeed it was an innocent coincidence? Liz Smith, a very highly regarded and read New York columnist, wrote a supportive rave review about my book - and me - in her column. When her column appeared in the L.A. Times, the review and all references to my book were excised from it. The rest of her column was intact. Warner Brothers had some sort of association with L.A. Times. I was told at the time what the connection was, but have forgotten. Entertainment Weekly, a very well read entertainment magazine, also gave my book a rave review. It was pulled and a bad review appeared instead. I am fairly certain that Warner Brothers had some financial involvement with Entertainment Weekly - perhaps they even owned it, I can't recall.
- Richard Schickel has made a living off writing puff pieces and documentary films about Clint. As I know those times and that subject well, I know Schickel's books are full of misstatements and downright fabrication, not only about me but others. He glorifies, practically deifies, Clint.
- I believe Clint knows who he is; he just doesn't LIKE who he is. I do believe that Clint loved me as much as he is capable of love, and in the first eight or so years together he really WANTED to be the man he knew I saw in him. I think he tried very hard, but eventually one's nature cannot change.
- I have many flaws, not the least of which is thinking too much of the other person's feelings and not enough of my own. Because of this, I try to please too much. I hate conflict and so I avoid it until it is almost too late and then I have the battle of a lifetime. I am a terrible worrier. I have to some degree overcome this one, because I learned that the things we worry about are rarely the things that actually happen. It's always something we never thought would or could happen - like what Clint did. Also, I had no breast cancer in my family so I didn't worry about that, and of course it did happen to me.
- If you stay with what you won't admit is false, or go along with an incompatible group, you will be victimized by a chain reaction that you can't turn off. Never forget that we are responsible for every act, that the law of cause and effect is always operating.
- [2013] I am reconciled that I will probably not work again, but if I do it will be something 'meant to be.'
- [on Clint Eastwood's fans] They only want his image and not to be bothered with reality.
- [1989, on what she would do if Clint Eastwood showed up on the set of Impulse (1990) to bad-vibe her] I'd go to my purse, take out my gun and shoot him in the back of the fucking head!
- What a completely evil, manipulating, lying excuse for a man he was. And what ultimate irony. Clint Eastwood, the man who symbolized to so many what a man should be, had turned out to have none of the acknowledged qualities of a real man - loyalty, honesty, bravery and moral strength - and yet Gordon, a child-man, a gay man, had possessed them all.
- Some friends of mine have some places up in Oregon and in northern California and Idaho and it's such beautiful country I take off there and collapse. I read and walk. And you know, it's amazing. I find everybody asks me what do you do, don't you get bored? I find that when I get in the country I don't know what it is but I find there's never enough time in the day, the day goes by so fast and I'll think: Oh, I wanted to write such and such a letter today or something else. Well, there's no time. I suppose the smallest task seems a monumental thing at the end of the day. I go with friends but away from business and away from Hollywood, and the telephone.
- [from an interview with Dick Kleiner, 1969] I haven't thought of having a family. I'm not sure about bringing kids into this world. Anyhow, I'd feel sorry for any child that had me for a mother.
- [on Willard (1971)] I hated it. I'm sorry that I did it.
- Signs and messages about life choices often appear to us in everyday ways. It's up to us to 'see' them and recognize their meaning. Often we are too preoccupied to pay attention. I have had more than my share of synchronicities, for which I am very grateful.
- [on being hauled up on a 25-foot cross in The Second Coming of Suzanne (1974) while a helicopter whirled around her with the camera] The roar of the helicopter was deafening and its blades seemed only twelve feet or so from my head. The cross was vibrating and I was absolutely terrified. Actors are crazy, I thought.
- On Sudden Impact (1983) I recall commenting to Clint about something in the decor of my character's house. I felt it was out of character for her, and reflected a different sort of person. His response to me was, 'If they're looking at that, they are not following the movie.' To him, it was entirely unimportant. I disagree completely. To me - and perhaps this was another early sign of the director in me - a film is as good as *every* detail put onto the screen. Like a painting, each and every detail adds up to create the total impression. Sometimes a thing works subliminally, but I believe it is all a solid and important part of the experience. In my opinion, Clint does not so much 'direct' a film as he 'shoots a script.' He rarely develops or initiates a screenplay. He buys a script and then shoots it literally. I would say it is not so much directing as 'covering' the script. By that I mean he will 'cover' a scene with all shots required to know what is going on, but doesn't express an opinion or guide the audiences' emotions or eye.
- [re Eastwood on Eastwood (1997), the documentary in which film clips were edited so carefully that she doesn't appear to have been in any of them] Yes, I heard about that. I wasn't surprised. It is one example of the pettiness that is Clint.
- [on Cover Me Babe (1970)] What's on the screen is not the film I agreed to do. It was far-out material at first, but there were lots of script changes during the filming and what emerged was rather conventional. It was a disappointing experience for me, because I know the movie they intended to make and didn't.
- [commentary for Henry C. Parke's 40th anniversary retrospective of The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)] Altogether the filming of Josey was a wonderful experience. It has left a warm place in my heart. Josey and Bronco Billy (1980) are my favorite films I made with Clint. It was the first of six films I made with Clint. It is the only western film I have had the luck of making. Living in that period alone was a great experience - the horses, the primitive nature of everything. I mostly recall the beautiful countryside. Lake Powell at sunset was amazing. The cast of Josey was full of such good actors. I will always recall Paula Trueman, who was 80 years old at the time, and how feisty she was. She put me to shame with her somersaults! Yes, she could still do them at 80! She loved to show off now and then on the set. And, of course, working with the great Chief Dan George gave such an authenticity to the experience. He was a wonderful person and told great tales of times gone by. In between takes I always found myself moving my chair near his so I could hear his words. I have nothing but great memories of the making of Josey. I wish I could be with you all at this screening. I haven't seen it in quite a while. Your honoring it makes me want to see it again. Have a great event. All my best, Sondra.
- [on Death Game (1977)] The director didn't have any idea what he needed to be, was, or should be doing. He knew nothing.
- [in Lydia Lane's column, 1971] I think many in this so-called now generation have had it too easy. They are suffering from the ills of a materialistic society. I am for change where it is needed, but not for revolt. If you look back in history you will find idealists in every age who wanted to change the world and the parasites who attached themselves to the movement for a free ride. I strongly believe in personal instincts or intuitions and try to listen and follow them. You cannot understand and relate to others until you understand and relate to yourself.
- The way I approach a part is to read the script and then just go about my everyday business. The character boils on the back burner of my mind until she becomes so vivid that she takes over, and I disappear. I never know what I'm going to do until I do it.
- To me, simplicity means elegance.
- [on marrying Gordon Anderson] It's funny the sort of cultural changes, but in those days males and females never lived together unless they were married.
- I never felt at home in Tennessee. I felt I'd been parachuted out at the wrong spot somehow.
- Before I had met Clint my gynecologist had suggested and fitted for me an IUD. Because my sex life was not very active, he did not think I should be constantly taking birth control pills. Clint complained of the IUD - it was uncomfortable for him, he said. And he too was not in favor of birth control pills, so he suggested a special clinic at Cedars Hospital where they taught a 'natural' method of birth control. It was the same 'rhythm' system that historically has been used to determine the fertile days for those who are attempting to achieve pregnancy. Of course, it could be used for the opposite results as well. Not only was I taught their method but I was constantly monitored with regular pregnancy checks. The whole process was awkward and entailed taking my temperature every morning and marking the calendar, etc. It was demanding and ultimately it had failed twice.
- [on having a repeat abortion] I couldn't help but think that that baby, with both Clint's and my best qualities, would be extraordinary.
- [on her first date with Clint Eastwood] Once at my door all that was necessary was another look at each other. There was no conversation, no maneuvering, it was all as natural as if it were happening for the thousandth time, but as exciting as any first time could be. He pulled me into his arms and kissed me gently, delicately. Then lifting me up, like some knight bearing his maiden, he carried me across the room to the bed. Physically I thought he was the most gorgeous man I had ever seen - his heroic face, his tall, lithe, muscular body. And in spite of his size and power, he was a gentle, affectionate, thoughtful, and yet intensely ardent lover. I thought of nothing except the moment. There was nothing in his past I wanted to know about, and nothing I wanted to tell, and certainly nothing I wanted to address about any future reality. We made love that night, not once, but several times. It was truly magic. Together, it seemed that, though we were two bodies, two hearts . . . in perfect accord we were one.
- Every TV job I did, I felt worse and worse and worse. I got so depressed, I thought I couldn't act anymore. The lines were terrible.
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