Samuel Shepard Rogers III (November 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017) was an American actor, playwright, author, director and screenwriter whose career spanned half a century. He won 10 Obie Awards for writing and directing, the most by any writer or director. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child (which was nominated for five Tony Awards) and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of 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 him as the greatest American playwright of his generation. He wrote 58 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs.As an actor, his best known roles are as Calvin Meyer in Midnight Special, Robert Rayburn on Netflixs series Bloodline, Beverly Weston in August Osage County, Harlan Whitford in Safe House, Hank Cahill in Brothers, Frank James in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, George Cummings in Stealth, Frank Calhoun in The Notebook, Master General William F. Garrison in Black Hawk Down, J.C. Franklin in All the Pretty Horses, Thomas Callahan in The Pelican Brief, Frank Coutelle in Thunderheart, Spud Jones in Steel Magnolias, Dr. Jeff Cooper in Baby Boom, Doc Porter in Crimes of the Heart, and Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff.Over the years, he taught extensively on playwriting and other aspects of theater. He gave classes and seminars at various theater workshops, festivals, and universities. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1986, and was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1986.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, he was involved in an extramarital affair with musician Patti Smith. Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell wrote two songs about her affairs with him during Bob Dylans Rolling Thunder Revue tour of 1975. In Coyote, from her eighth studio album Hejira, she recounts his seduction of her at a period while he was both married and having an extramarital affair with tour manager Christine ODell with the lines Hes got a woman at home, another woman down the hall, but he seems to want me anyway.He met actress Jessica Lange on the set of the 1982 film Frances, in which they both acted. He moved in with her in 1983, and they were together for 27 years; they separated in 2009. They had two children, Hannah Jane Shepard (born 1986) and Samuel Walker Shepard (born 1987).In 2014 and 2015, he dated actress Mia Kirshner.His 50-year friendship with Johnny Dark, stepfather to O-Lan Jones, was the subject of the 2013 documentary Shepard & Dark by Treva Wurmfeld. A collection of Shepard and Darks correspondence, Two Prospectors, was also published that year.He died on July 27, 2017, at his home in Midway, KY, aged 73, from complications of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Walter Faber
Film 1991
Ghost
Film 2000
Self
Film 2008
Sheriff Jack Kolb
Film 2003
Narrator (voice)
Film 2006
James Blackthorn
Film 2011
Narrator (voice)
Film 2000
Sheriff Morris
Film 2012
Cal
Film 1980
Frank Gilmore, Sr.
Film 2001
Caleb Gare
Film 2001
Self
Film 2013
Frank Whiteley
Film 2007
Mr. Stubbs
Film 2013
Pete Davenport
Film 1996
Self
Film 2002
Russell
Film 2014
Self
Film 2012
Rodeo
Film 1978
Paul Stark
Film 2017
Self
Film 2007
Self - Playwright, Actor (Thunderheart)
Film 2005
Self
Film 1993
Syrus
Film 2006
Film 1970
Self
Film 2003
Self
Film 2017
Film 1988
Self
Film 1995
The Writer
Film 2019
Father Judge
Tv 2014
Self - Nominee
Tv 1956
Robert Rayburn
Tv 2015
Self (uncredited)
Tv 1967
Self
Tv 1971