Sam Shepard

Ιουλίου 20, 2018

Sam Shepard

Samuel Shepard Rogers III was born in Fort Sheridan, Illinois, U.S on 5 November 1943. He was known professionally as Sam Shepard, was an American actor, playwright, author, screenwriter, and director whose body of work spanned half a century. He won 10 Obie Awards for writing and directing, the most given to any writer or director. He wrote 44 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs. 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 his portrayal of pilot Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff (1983). Shepard received the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award as a master American dramatist in 2009. New York magazine described him as "the greatest American playwright of his generation."

When Shepard first arrived in New York City, he roomed with Charlie Mingus, Jr., a friend from his high school days and the son of jazz musician Charles Mingus. He then lived with actress Joyce Aaron. From 1969 to 1984, he was married to actress O-Lan Jones, with whom he had one son, Jesse Mojo Shepard (born 1970). From 1970 to 1971, Shepard was involved in an extramarital affair with musician Patti Smith, who remained unaware of Shepard's identity as a multiple Obie Award-winning playwright until it was divulged to her by Jackie Curtis. According to Smith, "Me and his wife still even liked each other. I mean, it wasn't like committing adultery in the suburbs or something."

Shepard met Academy Award-winning actress Jessica Lange on the set of the film Frances, in which they were both acting. He moved in with her in 1983, and they were together for nearly 30 years; they separated in 2009. They had two children, Hannah Jane (born 1985) and Samuel Walker Shepard (born 1987). In 2003, his elder son, Jesse, wrote a book of short stories that was published in San Francisco; Shepard appeared with him at a reading to introduce the book.

Despite having a longstanding aversion to flying, Shepard allowed the real Chuck Yeager to take him up in a jet plane in 1982, while preparing to play the test pilot in The Right Stuff. Shepard described his fear of flying as a source for a character in his 1966 play Icarus's Mother. He went through an airliner crash in the film Voyager, and according to one account, he vowed never to fly again after a very rocky trip on an airliner coming back from Mexico in the 1960s.

In the early morning hours of January 3, 2009, Shepard was arrested and charged with speeding and drunken driving in Normal, Illinois. He pled guilty to both charges on February 11, 2009, and was sentenced to 24 months probation, alcohol education classes, and 100 hours of community service. On May 25, 2015, Shepard was arrested again, this time in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for aggravated drunk driving.

His 50-year friendship with Johnny Dark (stepfather to O-Lan Jones) was the subject of the documentary Shepard & Dark (2013) by Treva Wurmfeld. A collection of Shepard and Dark's correspondence, Two Prospectors, was also published that year.

Shepard died on July 27, 2017, at his home in Kentucky, aged 73, from complications of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Patti Smith paid homage in The New Yorker to their long collaboration.

(Based on Wikipedia)