Sondra Locke

From 1975 until 1989, Sondra Locke cohabited with Clint Eastwood. In the late 1970s Locke underwent two abortions and a tubal ligation. According to her autobiography, she decided to have the procedures because Eastwood insisted parenthood would not fit into their lifestyle. She later discovered Eastwood secretly fathered two children with another woman during the last three years of their relationship.

In 1989, Locke filed a palimony suit against Eastwood, after he changed the locks on their Bel-Air home and placed her possessions in storage while she was directing the film Impulse. The two parties reached a settlement in 1990, when Eastwood set up a film development/directing pact for Locke at Warner Bros. in exchange for dropping the suit.

In 1995, Locke sued Eastwood for fraud, alleging that he had compensated Warner Bros. to keep her out of work – the studio had rejected all of the 30 or more projects she proposed, and never assigned her to direct any of their in-house projects. According to Locke's attorney, Eastwood committed "the ultimate betrayal" by arranging the "bogus" film directing deal. In 1996 just minutes before a jury was to render a verdict in Locke's favor, Eastwood agreed to settle for an undisclosed amount. The outcome of the case, Locke said, sent a "loud and clear" message to Hollywood "that people cannot get away with whatever they want to just because they're powerful." The case is used in some modern law school contracts textbooks to illustrate the legal concept of good faith.

At the time of the victory, Locke had a separate pending action against Warner Bros. for allegedly harming her career by agreeing to the sham movie directing deal that Eastwood had purportedly engineered. As had been the case with the previous lawsuit this ended in an out of court settlement in 1999.