A
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright (for 1979's Buried Child), an Oscar-nominated
actor, and a director and screenwriter to boot, multi-talented Sam
Shepard has made a career of plumbing the darker depths of Middle-American
rural sensibilities and western myths.
The son of a military man, he was born Samuel Shepard
Rogers on November 3, 1943 in Fort Sheridan, Illinois. Following a
peripatetic childhood, part of which was spent on a farm, Shepard
left home in late adolescence to move to New York City, where by the
age of 20, he had had two plays produced. As a playwright, Shepard
went on to win a number of Obies for such dramas as Curse of the Starving
Class (1977), which he made into a film in 1994, and True West (aired
on PBS in 1986). As an actor, the lanky and handsome Shepard made
his feature film debut with a small role in Bronco Bullfrog (1969)
and didn't resurface again until Bob Dylan's disastrous Renaldo and
Clara (1978). The film followed Shepard's residence in London during
the early '70s, where he worked on stage as an actor and director
when not playing drums for his band, The Holy Modal Rounders, which
had performed as part of Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue in 1975. Also
in 1978, Shepard made a big impression playing a wealthy landowner
in Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven, but it was not until he received
a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for playing astronaut Chuck
Yeager in The Right Stuff (1983) that he became a well-known actor.
Following this success, he went on to specialize in playing drifters,
cowboys, con artists, and eccentric characters with only the occasional
leading role. Some of his more notable work included Paris, Texas
(1984), which he also wrote; Fool For Love (1985), which was adapted
from his play of the same name; Baby Boom (1987), Steel Magnolias
(1989) and The Pelican Brief (1993).
In addition to acting and writing, Shepard has also directed:
in 1988, he made his debut with Far North, a film he wrote especially
for his off-screen leading lady, Jessica Lange, with whom he has acted
in Frances (1982), Country (1984), and Crimes of the Heart (1986).
In 1999, Shepard could be seen on both the big and small
screen. He appeared in Snow Falling in Cedars and Dash and Lilly,
a made-for-TV movie for which he won an Emmy nomination in the role
of the titular Dashiell Hammett. In addition, he also lent his writing
skills to Simpatico, a Nick Nolte vehicle about friendship and loss
adapted from Shepard's play of the same name. --
Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
