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Actor Sam Shepard mulls over a scene in the motion picture Stealth, while filming on June 15, 2004, aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.

Sam Shepard (born November 5, 1943) is an American playwright, writer and actor.

He was born Samuel Shepard Rogers in Fort Sheridan, Illinois. His many works are known for being frank and often absurd, and for having an authentic sense of the style and sensibility of the gritty modern American west. Shepard is also a respected actor of stage and motion pictures.

His play Buried Child received a Pulitzer Prize in 1979; other notable work includes Curse of the Starving Class in 1978, True West in 1980 and A Lie of the Mind in 1985. He also continued with his collaboration with Bob Dylan that started with the surrealist film Renaldo & Clara on an epic, 11 minute song entitled "Brownsville Girl", included on the 1986 Knocked Out Loaded album and later compilations.

In 1986, Shepard was elected to The American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Shepard was previously married to actress O-Lan Jones (born O-Lan Johnson, alias O-Lan Johnson Dark, alias O-Lan Barna) from 1969 to 1984, by whom he has one son, Jesse Mojo Shepard (born 1970).

After the end of his relationship with the singer and musician Patti Smith, Shepard met Oscar-winning actress Jessica Lange on the set of a movie they both starred in, Frances. He moved in with her in 1983. They have two children, Hannah Jane (born 1985) and Samuel Walker Shepard (born 1987), in Manhattan.

• 1964 Cowboys
• 1964 The Rock Garden
• 1965 Chicago
• 1965 Icarus's Mother
• 1965 4-H Club
• 1966 Red Cross
• 1967 La Turista
• 1967 Cowboys #2
• 1967 Forensic & the Navigators
• 1969 The Unseen Hand
• 1969 Oh! Calcutta! (contributed sketches)
• 1970 The Holy Ghostly
• 1970 Operation Sidewinder
• 1971 Mad Dog Blues
• 1971 Back Bog Beast Bait
• 1971 Cowboy Mouth (co-written with Patti Smith)
• 1972 The Tooth of Crime
• 1975 Action
• 1978 Curse of the Starving Class
• 1978 Tongues (co-written with Joseph Chaikin)
• 1977 Buried Child
• 1980 True West
• 1981 Savage/Love (co-written with Joseph Chaikin)
• 1983 Fool for Love
• 1985 A Lie of the Mind
• 1991 States of Shock
• 1993 Simpatico
• 1995 Buried Child Revised
• 1998 Eyes for Consuela
• 2000 The Late Henry Moss
• 2004 The God of Hell

• 1970 Brand X
• 1978 Renaldo and Clara - Rodeo
• 1978 Days of Heaven - The Farmer
• 1980 Resurrection - Cal Carpenter
• 1982 Frances - Harry York
• 1983 The Right Stuff - Chuck Yeager
• 1984 Paris, Texas
• 1986 Crimes of the Heart - Doc Porter
• 1987 Baby Boom - Dr. Jeff Cooper
• 1989 Steel Magnolias - Spud Jones
• 1991 The Voyager - Walter Faber
• 1992 Thunderheart - Frank Coutelle
• 1993 The Pelican Brief - Professor Thomas Callahan
• 1999 Snow Falling on Cedars - Arthur Chambers
• 2000 Hamlet - The Ghost
• 2001 Black Hawk Down - Maj. Gen. William F. Garrison
• 2001 Kurosawa - Narrator
• 2001 Shot in the Heart - Frank Gilmore
• 2001 Swordfish - Senator James Reisman
• 2001 The Pledge - Eric Pollack
• 2004 The Notebook - Frank Calhoun
• 2005 Don't Come Knocking - Howard
• 2005 Bandidas
• 2005 Stealth - Capt. George Cummings
• 2006 The Return
• 2006 The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (post-production)
• 2006 Charlotte's Web (Narrator)
• 2007 The Accidental Husband - Wilder

• 1970 Zabriskie Point, dir: Michelangelo Antonioni
• 1984 Paris, Texas, dir: Wim Wenders
• 1985 Fool for Love, dir: Robert Altman
• 2005 Don't Come Knocking, dir: Wim Wenders

• 1988 Far North (also screenplay)
• 1994 Silent Tongue (also screenplay)

• Seven Plays, Dial Press, 1984, 368 pages, ISBN 0-553-34611-3
• Fool For Love and Other Plays, Bantam, 1984, 320 pages, ISBN 0-553-34590-7
• The Unseen Hand: and Other Plays, Vintage, 1996, 400 pages, ISBN 0-679-76789-4

• Cruising Paradise, Vintage, 1997, 255 pages, ISBN 0-679-74217-4
• Great Dream Of Heaven Vintage, 2003, 160 pages, ISBN 0-375-70452-3

• Rolling Thunder Logbook, Da Capo, 2004 reissue, 176 pages, ISBN 0-306-81371-8
• Motel Chronicles, City Lights, 1983, ISBN 0-87286-143-0

Sam Shepard was also a drummer for the eccentric late 1960s rock band Holy Modal Rounders.

In 1986, Shepard was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and, in 1992, he received the Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy.

In 1994 he was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame. Of his 45+ plays, 11 of them have won Obie Awards. He was nominated for two Tony Awards for Buried Child in 1996, and for True West in 2000.

His play Buried Child received a Pulitzer Prize in 1979.

• Sam Shepard at the Internet Movie Database
• Sam Shepard at the Internet Broadway Database
• The Sam Shepard Web Site
• "Brownsville Girl," by Bob Dylan and Sam Shepard
• Sam Shepard at the Open Directory Project (suggest site)
• [1] Caffe Cino