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Sam Shepard

Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard Stealth cropped.JPG
Shepard in June 2004
Born Samuel Shepard Rogers III
(1943-11-05) November 5, 1943 (age 73)
Fort Sheridan, Illinois, U.S.
Occupation
  • Playwright
  • actor
  • author
  • screenwriter
  • director
Years active 1963–present
Spouse(s) O-Lan Jones (m. 1969; div. 1984)
Partner(s) Jessica Lange (c. 1982; sep. 2009)
Children 4
Website www.sam-shepard.com

Samuel Shepard Rogers III (born November 5, 1943), known professionally as Sam Shepard, is an American playwright, actor, author, screenwriter, and director, whose body of work spans over half a century. He is the author of forty-four plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs. Shepard received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of pilot Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff (1983). Shepard received the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award as a master American dramatist in 2009. New York described him as "the greatest American playwright of his generation."

Shepard's plays are chiefly known for their bleak, poetic, often surrealist elements, black humor and rootless characters living on the outskirts of American society. His style has evolved over the years, from the absurdism of his early Off-Off-Broadway work to the realism of Buried Child and Curse of the Starving Class (both 1978).

Shepard was born November 5, 1943, in Fort Sheridan, Illinois. He was named Samuel Shepard Rogers III after his father, Samuel Shepard Rogers, Jr., but his nickname was "Steve Rogers". His father was a teacher and farmer who served in the United States Army Air Forces as a bomber pilot during World War II; Shepard has characterized him as "a drinking man, a dedicated alcoholic". His mother, Jane Elaine (née Schook), was a teacher and a native of Chicago.


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