• Samuel Shepard Rogers III (November 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017) was an American actor, playwright, author, director and screenwriter whose career spanned half a century.
  • Sam Shepard was born Samuel Shepard Rogers in Fort Sheridan, IL, to Jane Elaine (Schook), a teacher, and Samuel Shepard Rogers...
  • Shepard also achieved fame as an actor, writer, and director in the film industry, and appeared in numerous films and TV shows throughout his career.
  • In the 1965–66 season Shepard won Obie Awards (presented by the Village Voice newspaper) for his plays Chicago , Icarus’s Mother , and Red Cross .
  • Sam Shepard’s plays are often set amidst scruffy lives being played out on the margins of wealthy United States society.
  • In 1986, Shepard was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and received the Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy in 1992.
  • The taciturn Shepard, who grew up on a California ranch, was a man of few words who nevertheless produced 44 plays and numerous books, memoirs and short...
  • Throughout his career Shepard has amassed numerous grants, prizes, fellowships, and awards, including the Cannes Palme d'Or and the Pulitzer Prize.
  • Shepard is most acclaimed for his playwriting and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for the play Buried Child (1978).
  • Sam Shepard in a still from Robert Altman’s 1985 adaptation of Shepard’s play Fool For Love.