Sam Shepard | |
|---|---|
 Shepard in 2004 | |
| Born | Samuel Shepard Rogers III (1943-11-05)November 5, 1943 Fort Sheridan, Illinois, U.S. |
| Died | July 27, 2017(2017-07-27) (aged 73) Midway, Kentucky, U.S. |
| Education | Mt. San Antonio College |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1963–2017 |
| Works | Filmography |
| Spouse | |
| Partner | Jessica Lange (1982–2009) |
| Children | 3 |
| Awards | Seefull list |
| Signature | |
 | |
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.[1] He wrote 58 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs. He won 10Obie Awards for writing and directing, the most by any writer or director. Shepard received thePulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his playBuried Child and was nominated for anAcademy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of pilotChuck Yeager in the 1983 filmThe Right Stuff. He received thePEN/Laura Pels Theater Award as a master American dramatist in 2009.New York magazine described Shepard as "the greatest American playwright of his generation."[2]
Shepard's plays are known for their bleak, poetic, surrealist elements,black comedy, and rootless characters living on the outskirts of American society.[3] His style evolved from the absurdism of his earlyoff-off-Broadway work to the realism of later plays likeBuried Child andCurse of the Starving Class.[4]
Sam Shepard was born on November 5, 1943, in the Chicago suburb ofFort Sheridan, Illinois.[5] He was named Samuel Shepard Rogers III after his father, Samuel Shepard Rogers Jr. (1917–1984),[6] but was called Steve Rogers.[7]
His father was a teacher and farmer who served in the United States Army Air Forces as abomber pilot duringWorld War II. Shepard characterized his father as "a drinking man, a dedicated alcoholic".[8] His mother, Jane Elaine (née Schook; 1917–1994), was a teacher and a native of Chicago.[9]
Shepard grew up in southern California. He worked on aranch as a teenager. After graduating fromDuarte High School inDuarte, California, in 1961, he briefly studiedanimal husbandry at nearbyMt. San Antonio College.[8][10] While at college, Shepard became enamored ofSamuel Beckett,jazz, andabstract expressionism. He dropped out to join the Bishop's Company, a touringrepertory group.
Shepard moved to New York City in 1963 and found work as a busboy at theVillage Gate nightclub. The following year, the Village Gate's head waiter, Ralph Cook, founded the experimental stage companyTheater Genesis, housed atSt. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery in Manhattan. Two of Shepard's earliestone-act plays,The Rock Garden andCowboys, debuted at Theater Genesis in October 1964. It was around this time that he adopted the professional name Sam Shepard.[11]
In 1965, Shepard's one-act playsDog andThe Rocking Chair were produced atLa MaMa Experimental Theatre Club.[12] These were the first of many productions of Shepard's work at La MaMa during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. In 1967,Tom O'Horgan directed Shepard'sMelodrama Play alongsideLeonard Melfi'sTimes Square andRochelle Owens'Futz at La MaMa.[13] In 1969,Jeff Bleckner directed Shepard's playThe Unseen Hand at La MaMa.[14] Bleckner then directedThe Unseen Hand alongsideForensic and the Navigators at the nearbyAstor Place Theatre in 1970.[15]
Shepard's playShaved Splits was directed at La MaMa in 1970 by Bill Hart.[16] Seth Allen directedMelodrama Play at La MaMa the following year.[17] In 1981, Tony Barsha directedThe Unseen Hand at La MaMa. The production then transferred to theProvincetown Playhouse and ran for over 100 performances.[18]Syracuse Stage co-producedThe Tooth of Crime at La MaMa in 1983.[19] Also in 1983, the Overtone Theatre and New Writers at the Westside co-produced Shepard's playsSuperstitions andThe Sad Lament of Pecos Bill on the Eve of Killing His Wife at La MaMa.[20]John Densmore performed in his own playSkins and Shepard andJoseph Chaikin's playTongues, directed as adouble bill by Tony Abatemarco, at La MaMa in 1984.[21] Nicholas Swyrydenko directed a production ofGeography of a Horse Dreamer at La MaMa in 1985.[22]
Several of Shepard's early plays, includingRed Cross (1966) andLa Turista (1967), were directed byJacques Levy. A patron of theChelsea Hotel scene, he also contributed toKenneth Tynan'sOh! Calcutta! (1969) and drummed sporadically from 1967 through 1971 with the bandThe Holy Modal Rounders, appearing on their albumsIndian War Whoop (1967) andThe Moray Eels Eat The Holy Modal Rounders (1968). After winning sixObie Awards between 1966 and 1968, Shepard emerged as a screenwriter withRobert Frank'sMe and My Brother (1968) andMichelangelo Antonioni'sZabriskie Point (1970).
Cowboy Mouth, a collaboration with his then-loverPatti Smith, was staged atThe American Place Theatre in April 1971, providing early exposure for Smith, who would become a well-known musician. The story and characters inCowboy Mouth were inspired by Shepard and Smith's relationship. After opening night, he abandoned the production and fled to New England without a word to anyone involved.[23]
Shortly thereafter, Shepard relocated with his wife and son to London. While in London, he immersed himself in the study ofG.I. Gurdjieff'sFourth Way, a recurring preoccupation for much of his life. Returning to the United States in 1975, he moved to the 20-acre Flying Y Ranch in Mill Valley, California, where he raised a young colt named Drum and rode double with his young son on anappaloosa named Cody.[24][25][26][27][28] Shepard continued to write plays and served for a semester as Regents' Professor of Drama at theUniversity of California, Davis.
Shepard accompaniedBob Dylan on theRolling Thunder Revue of 1975 as the screenwriter forRenaldo and Clara that emerged from the tour. However, because much of the film was improvised, Shepard's work was seldom used.Rolling Thunder Logbook, his diary of the tour, was published in 1978. A decade later, Dylan and Shepard co-wrote the 11-minute song "Brownsville Girl", included on Dylan's 1986 albumKnocked Out Loaded and on later compilations.
In 1975, Shepard was namedplaywright-in-residence at theMagic Theatre in San Francisco, where he created many of his notable works, including hisFamily Trilogy. One of the plays in the trilogy,Buried Child (1978), won thePulitzer Prize, and was nominated for fiveTony Awards.[29] This marked a major turning point in his career, heralding some of his best-known work, includingTrue West (1980),Fool for Love (1983), andA Lie of the Mind (1985). A comic tale of reunion, in which a young man drops in on his grandfather's Illinois farmstead only to be greeted with indifference by his relations,Buried Child saw Shepard stake a claim to the psychological terrain of classic American theater.True West andFool for Love were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.[30][31] Some critics have expanded the trilogy to a quintet, includingFool for Love andA Lie of the Mind. Shepard won a record-setting tenObie Awards for writing and directing between 1966 and 1984.
In 2010,A Lie of the Mind was revived in New York at the same time as Shepard's new playAges of the Moon opened there.[32] Reflecting on the two plays, Shepard said that the older play felt "awkward", adding, "All of the characters are in a fractured place, broken into pieces, and the pieces don't really fit together," while the newer play "is like aPorsche. It's sleek, it does exactly what you want it to do, and it can speed up but also shows off great brakes."[33] The revival and the new play also coincided with the publication of Shepard's collectionDay out of Days: Stories.[34] The book includes "short stories, poems and narrative sketches... that developed from dozens of leather-bound notebooks [Shepard] carried with him over the years."[33]
Shepard began his film acting career when cast in a major role as the land baron inTerrence Malick'sDays of Heaven (1978), oppositeRichard Gere andBrooke Adams.[30] This led to other film roles, including that of Cal,Ellen Burstyn's character's love interest inResurrection (1980), and, most notably, Shepard's portrayal ofChuck Yeager inThe Right Stuff (1983). The latter performance earned Shepard an Academy Award nomination forBest Supporting Actor. By 1986,Fool for Love was adapted byRobert Altman with Shepard in the lead role;A Lie of the Mind was being performedOff Broadway (withHarvey Keitel andGeraldine Page); and Shepard was working steadily as a film actor. Together, these achievements put him on the cover ofNewsweek.
Over the years, Shepard taught extensively on playwriting and other aspects of theater. He gave classes and seminars at various theater workshops, festivals, and universities. Shepard was elected to theAmerican Academy of Arts and Letters in 1986, and was elected a Fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1986.[35] In 2000, Shepard demonstrated his gratitude to the Magic Theatre by stagingThe Late Henry Moss as a benefit for the theater, in San Francisco. The cast includedNick Nolte,Sean Penn,Woody Harrelson, andCheech Marin. The limited, three-month run was sold out. In 2001, Shepard played GeneralWilliam F. Garrison in the filmBlack Hawk Down. Although he was cast in a supporting role, Shepard enjoyed renewed interest in his talent for screen acting.
Shepard performedSpalding Gray's final monologueLife Interrupted for the audiobook version, released in 2006. In 2007, Shepard contributed banjo to Patti Smith's cover ofNirvana's song "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on her albumTwelve. Although many artists had an influence on Shepard's work, one of the more significant wasJoseph Chaikin, a veteran ofThe Living Theatre and founder ofThe Open Theater.[11] The two worked together on various projects, and Shepard has stated that Chaikin was a valuable mentor.
In 2011, Shepard starred in the filmBlackthorn. His final film appearance isNever Here, which premiered in June 2017 but had been filmed in 2014.[36] Shepard also appeared in the television seriesBloodline from 2014 to 2017.[37]
At the beginning of his career, Shepard did not direct his own plays. His early plays had a number of different directors, but were most frequently directed by Ralph Cook, the founder ofTheatre Genesis. Later, while living at the Flying Y Ranch, Shepard formed a successful playwright-director relationship withRobert Woodruff, who directed the premiere ofBuried Child (1982). During the 1970s, Shepard decided that his vision for his plays required him to direct them himself. He directed many of his own plays from that point onward. With only a few exceptions, he did not direct plays by other playwrights. He also directed two films but reportedly did not see film directing as a major interest.
When Shepard first arrived in New York City, he roomed with Charlie Mingus III, a friend from Duarte High School and the son of jazz musicianCharles Mingus. Shepard then lived with actress Joyce Aaron.
Between 1967 and 1970 he was part of the New York psychedelic rock groupThe Holy Modal Rounders as drummer, participating in the recording of two albums of the bandIndian War Whoop released in 1967 andThe Moray Eels Eat The Holy Modal Rounders in 1968.
From 1969 to 1984, he was married to actressO-Lan Jones, with whom he had one son, Jesse Mojo Shepard (b. 1971).[38]
From 1970 to 1971, Shepard was involved in an extramarital affair with musicianPatti Smith, who remained unaware of his identity as a multipleObie Award-winning playwright until it was divulged to her byJackie Curtis. Smith said: "Me and his wife still even liked each other. I mean, it wasn't like committing adultery in the suburbs or something."[39]
Canadian singer-songwriterJoni Mitchell wrote two songs about her affairs with Shepard during Bob Dylan'sRolling Thunder Revue tour of 1975. In "Coyote", from her eighth studio albumHejira, she recounts Shepard's seduction of her at a period while he was both married and having an extramarital affair with tour manager Christine O'Dell with the lines: "He's got a woman at home, another woman down the hall, but he seems to want me anyway."[40] Meanwhile, in "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter", written during the same tour, Mitchell referenced the closeness between their birthdays, calling them "twins of spirit".[41]
Shepard met actressJessica Lange on the set of the 1982 filmFrances, in which they were both acting. He moved in with her in 1983, and they were together for 27 years; they separated in 2009.[42] They had two children, Hannah Jane Shepard (b. 1986) and Samuel Walker Shepard (b. 1987). In 2003, Shepard's elder son, Jesse, wrote a book of short stories, and Shepard appeared with him at a reading atCity Lights Bookstore.[43]
In 2014 and 2015, Shepard dated actressMia Kirshner.[44][45]
After a turbulent trip on an airliner returning from Mexico in the 1960s, he apparently vowed never to fly again.[46] Despite this longstanding aversion to flying, Shepard allowed Chuck Yeager to take him up in a jet in 1982 in preparation for playing the pilot in the filmThe Right Stuff.[47][48] Shepard cited his fear of flying as a source for a character in his 1966 playIcarus's Mother.[49] His character went through an airliner crash in the filmVoyager.
In the early morning hours of January 3, 2009, Shepard was arrested and charged with speeding anddrunk driving inNormal, Illinois.[50] He pleaded guilty to both charges on February 11, 2009, and was sentenced to 24 months probation, alcohol education classes, and 100 hours ofcommunity service.[51] On May 25, 2015, Shepard was arrested again inSanta Fe, New Mexico, for aggravated drunk driving.[52] Those charges were later dismissed as having no likelihood of conviction at trial.[53]
His 50-year friendship with Johnny Dark, stepfather to O-Lan Jones, was the subject of the 2013 documentaryShepard & Dark by Treva Wurmfeld.[54] A collection of Shepard and Dark's correspondence,Two Prospectors, was also published that year.[55]
Shepard died on July 27, 2017, at his home inMidway, Kentucky, aged 73, from complications ofamyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).[5][56][57] Patti Smith paid homage to their long collaboration inThe New Yorker.[58] Fellow actorMatthew McConaughey, who had co-starred with Shepard inMud, learned of Shepard's death during a television interview and was shocked by the news, ending the interview saying: "See you in the next one, Sam."[59]
Sam Shepard's papers are split between theWittliff Collections of Southwestern Writers atTexas State University, comprising 27 boxes (13 linear feet)[60] and theHarry Ransom Center at theUniversity of Texas at Austin, comprising 30 document boxes (12.6 linear feet).[61]
He was born Samuel Shepard Rogers III and called Steve, although if he were royalty his name would have been Samuel Shepard Rogers VII.
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