Samuel Shepard Rogers III (November 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017) was an American playwright, actor, director, screenwriter, and author whose career spanned half a century. He wrote 58 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs. He won 10 Obie Awards for writing and directing, the most by any writer or director. 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 portraying pilot Chuck Yeager in the 1983 film The Right Stuff. He received the PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award as a master American dramatist in 2009. New York magazine described Shepard as "the greatest American playwright of his generation." Shepard's plays are known for their bleak, poetic, surrealist elements, black comedy, and rootless characters living on the outskirts of American society. His 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.

Sam Shepard

Acting Born November 5, 1943 – Died July 27, 2017 Fort Sheridan, Illinois, USA

Samuel Shepard Rogers III (November 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017) was an American playwright, actor, director, screenwriter, and author whose career spanned half a century. He wrote 58 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs. He won 10 Obie Awards for writing and directing, the most by any writer or director. 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 portraying pilot Chuck Yeager in the 1983 film The Right Stuff. He received the PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award as a master American dramatist in 2009. New York magazine described Shepard as "the greatest American playwright of his generation."

Shepard's plays are known for their bleak, poetic, surrealist elements, black comedy, and rootless characters living on the outskirts of American society. His 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.

Known For

Great Performances

Self

Tony Awards

Self - Nominee

The Notebook

Frank Calhoun

Black Hawk Down

Garrison

Bloodline

Robert Rayburn

Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In

Self (uncredited)

Charlotte's Web

Narrator (voice)

Killing Them Softly

Dillon

Safe House

Harlan Whitford

The Pelican Brief

Thomas Callahan

Brothers

Hank Cahill

Swordfish

Senator Reisman