Samuel Shepard Rogers III was an American actor, playwright, author, screenwriter, and director whose career spanned half a century.
45 Facts About Sam Shepard
2.
Sam Shepard won 10 Obie Awards for writing and directing, the most by any writer or director.
3.
Sam Shepard wrote 58 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs.
4.
Sam Shepard's plays are known for their bleak, poetic, surrealist elements, black comedy, and rootless characters living on the outskirts of American society.
5.
Sam Shepard's style evolved from the absurdism of his early off-off-Broadway work to the realism of later plays like Buried Child and Curse of the Starving Class.
6.
Sam Shepard was born on November 5,1943, in the Chicago suburb of Fort Sheridan, Illinois.
7.
Sam Shepard was named Samuel Shepard Rogers III after his father, Samuel Shepard Rogers Jr.
8.
Sam Shepard's father was a teacher and farmer who served in the United States Army Air Forces as a bomber pilot during World War II.
9.
Sam Shepard characterized his father as "a drinking man, a dedicated alcoholic".
10.
Sam Shepard's mother, Jane Elaine, was a teacher and a native of Chicago.
11.
Sam Shepard dropped out to join the Bishop's Company, a touring repertory group.
12.
Sam Shepard moved to New York City in 1963 and found work as a busboy at the Village Gate nightclub.
13.
In 1965, Sam Shepard's one-act plays Dog and The Rocking Chair were produced at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club.
14.
Sam Shepard's play Shaved Splits was directed at La MaMa in 1970 by Bill Hart.
15.
Also in 1983, the Overtone Theatre and New Writers at the Westside co-produced Sam Shepard's plays Superstitions and The Sad Lament of Pecos Bill on the Eve of Killing His Wife at La MaMa.
16.
Several of Sam Shepard's early plays, including Red Cross and La Turista, were directed by Jacques Levy.
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Shortly thereafter, Sam Shepard relocated with his wife and son to London.
18.
Sam Shepard continued to write plays and served for a semester as Regents' Professor of Drama at the University of California, Davis.
19.
Sam Shepard accompanied Bob Dylan on the Rolling Thunder Revue of 1975 as the screenwriter for Renaldo and Clara that emerged from the tour.
20.
However, because much of the film was improvised, Sam Shepard's work was seldom used.
21.
In 1975, Sam Shepard was named playwright-in-residence at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco, where he created many of his notable works, including his Family Trilogy.
22.
Sam Shepard won a record-setting 10 Obie Awards for writing and directing between 1966 and 1984.
23.
Sam Shepard began his film acting career when cast in a major role as the land baron in Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven, opposite Richard Gere and Brooke Adams.
24.
Sam Shepard gave classes and seminars at various theater workshops, festivals, and universities.
25.
Sam Shepard was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1986, and was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1986.
26.
In 2000, Sam Shepard demonstrated his gratitude to the Magic Theatre by staging The Late Henry Moss as a benefit for the theatre, in San Francisco.
27.
In 2001, Shepard played General William F Garrison in the film Black Hawk Down.
28.
Sam Shepard performed Spalding Gray's final monologue Life Interrupted for the audiobook version, released in 2006.
29.
In 2007, Sam Shepard contributed banjo to Patti Smith's cover of Nirvana's song "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on her album Twelve.
30.
Sam Shepard appeared in the television series Bloodline from 2014 to 2017.
31.
At the beginning of his career, Sam Shepard did not direct his own plays.
32.
Sam Shepard's early plays had a number of different directors, but were most frequently directed by Ralph Cook, the founder of Theatre Genesis.
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Later, while living at the Flying Y Ranch, Sam Shepard formed a successful playwright-director relationship with Robert Woodruff, who directed the premiere of Buried Child.
34.
Sam Shepard directed many of his own plays from that point onward.
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Sam Shepard directed two films but reportedly did not see film directing as a major interest.
36.
When Sam Shepard first arrived in New York City, he roomed with Charlie Mingus, Jr.
37.
From 1970 to 1971, Sam Shepard was involved in an extramarital affair with musician Patti Smith, who remained unaware of Sam Shepard's identity as a multiple Obie Award-winning playwright until it was divulged to her by Jackie Curtis.
38.
Sam Shepard met actress Jessica Lange on the set of the 1982 film Frances, in which they were both acting.
39.
Sam Shepard moved in with her in 1983, and they were together for 27 years; they separated in 2009.
40.
Sam Shepard cited his fear of flying as a source for a character in his 1966 play Icarus's Mother.
41.
Sam Shepard's character went through an airliner crash in the film Voyager.
42.
Sam Shepard pleaded guilty to both charges on February 11,2009, and was sentenced to 24 months probation, alcohol education classes, and 100 hours of community service.
43.
On May 25,2015, Sam Shepard was arrested again in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for aggravated drunk driving.
44.
Sam Shepard died on July 27,2017, at his home in Midway, Kentucky, aged 73, from complications of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
45.
Sam Shepard's papers are split between the Wittliff Collections of Southwestern Writers at Texas State University, comprising 27 boxes and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, comprising 30 document boxes.