Sam Shepard

Life and career

Early years and education

Sam Shepard was born on November 5, 1943, in the Chicago suburb of Fort Sheridan, Illinois. He was called Steve Rogers.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T59milCjWBQC&q=steve+rogers&pg=PA12

His father was a teacher and farmer who served in the United States Army Air Forces as a bomber pilot during World War II. Shepard characterized his father as "a drinking man, a dedicated alcoholic". His mother, Jane Elaine (née Schook; 1917–1994), was a teacher and a native of Chicago.

Shepard grew up in southern California. He worked on a ranch as a teenager. After graduating in 1961 from Duarte High School in Duarte, California, he briefly studied animal husbandry at nearby Mt. San Antonio College. While in college, Shepard became enamored of Samuel Beckett, jazz, and abstract expressionism. He dropped out to join the Bishop's Company, a touring repertory group.

Writing

Shepard moved to New York City in 1963 and found work as a busboy at the Village Gate nightclub. The following year, the Village Gate's head waiter, Ralph Cook, founded the experimental stage company Theater Genesis, housed at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery in Manhattan. Two of Shepard's earliest one-act plays, The Rock Garden and Cowboys, debuted at Theater Genesis in October 1964. It was around this time that he adopted the professional name Sam Shepard.

In 1965, Shepard's one-act plays Dog and The Rocking Chair were produced at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. 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's Melodrama Play alongside Leonard Melfi's Times Square and Rochelle Owens' Futz at La MaMa. In 1969, Jeff Bleckner directed Shepard's play The Unseen Hand at La MaMa. Bleckner then directed The Unseen Hand alongside Forensic and the Navigators at the nearby Astor Place Theatre in 1970.

Shepard's play Shaved Splits was directed at La MaMa in 1970 by Bill Hart. Seth Allen directed Melodrama Play at La MaMa the following year. In 1981, Tony Barsha directed The Unseen Hand at La MaMa. The production then transferred to the Provincetown Playhouse and ran for over 100 performances. Syracuse Stage co-produced The Tooth of Crime at La MaMa in 1983. Also in 1983, the Overtone Theatre and New Writers at the Westside co-produced Shepard's plays Superstitions and The Sad Lament of Pecos Bill on the Eve of Killing His Wife at La MaMa. John Densmore performed in his own play Skins and Shepard and Joseph Chaikin's play Tongues, directed as a double bill by Tony Abatemarco, at La MaMa in 1984. Nicholas Swyrydenko directed a production of Geography of a Horse Dreamer at La MaMa in 1985.

Several of Shepard's early plays, including Red Cross (1966) and La Turista (1967), were directed by Jacques Levy. A patron of the Chelsea Hotel scene, he also contributed to Kenneth Tynan's Oh! Calcutta! (1969) and drummed sporadically from 1967 through 1971 with the band The Holy Modal Rounders, appearing on their albums Indian War Whoop (1967) and The Moray Eels Eat The Holy Modal Rounders (1968). After winning six Obie Awards between 1966 and 1968, Shepard emerged as a screenwriter with Robert Frank's Me and My Brother (1968) and Michelangelo Antonioni's Zabriskie Point (1970).

Cowboy Mouth, a collaboration with his then-lover Patti Smith, was staged at The American Place Theatre in April 1971, providing early exposure for Smith, who would become a well-known musician. The story and characters in Cowboy 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.

Shortly thereafter, Shepard relocated with his wife and son to London. While in London, he immersed himself in the study of G.I. Gurdjieff's Fourth 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 an appaloosa named Cody. Shepard continued to write plays and served for a semester as Regents' Professor of Drama at the University of California, Davis.

Shepard accompanied Bob Dylan on the Rolling Thunder Revue of 1975 as the screenwriter for Renaldo 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 album Knocked Out Loaded and on later compilations.

In 1975, Shepard was named playwright-in-residence at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco, where he created many of his notable works, including his Family Trilogy. One of the plays in the trilogy, Buried Child (1978), won the Pulitzer Prize, and was nominated for five Tony Awards. This marked a major turning point in his career, heralding some of his best-known work, including True West (1980), Fool for Love (1983), and A 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 and Fool for Love were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Some critics have expanded the trilogy to a quintet, including Fool for Love and A Lie of the Mind. Shepard won a record-setting ten Obie 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 play Ages of the Moon opened there. 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 a Porsche. It's sleek, it does exactly what you want it to do, and it can speed up but also shows off great brakes." The revival and the new play also coincided with the publication of Shepard's collection Day out of Days: Stories. The book includes "short stories, poems and narrative sketches... that developed from dozens of leather-bound notebooks [Shepard] carried with him over the years."

Acting

Shepard began his film acting career when cast in a major role as the land baron in Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven (1978), opposite Richard Gere and Brooke Adams. This led to other film roles, including that of Cal, Ellen Burstyn's character's love interest in Resurrection (1980), and, most notably, Shepard's portrayal of Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff (1983). The latter performance earned Shepard an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. By 1986, Fool for Love was adapted by Robert Altman with Shepard in the lead role; A Lie of the Mind was being performed Off Broadway (with Harvey Keitel and Geraldine Page); and Shepard was working steadily as a film actor. Together, these achievements put him on the cover of Newsweek.

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 the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1986, and was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1986. In 2000, Shepard demonstrated his gratitude to the Magic Theatre by staging The Late Henry Moss as a benefit for the theater, in San Francisco. The cast included Nick Nolte, Sean Penn, Woody Harrelson, and Cheech Marin. The limited, three-month run was sold out. In 2001, Shepard played General William F. Garrison in the film Black Hawk Down. Although he was cast in a supporting role, Shepard enjoyed renewed interest in his talent for screen acting.

Shepard performed Spalding Gray's final monologue Life Interrupted for the audiobook version, released in 2006. In 2007, Shepard contributed banjo to Patti Smith's cover of Nirvana's song "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on her album Twelve. Although many artists had an influence on Shepard's work, one of the more significant was Joseph Chaikin, a veteran of The Living Theatre and founder of The Open Theater. The two worked together on various projects, and Shepard has stated that Chaikin was a valuable mentor.

In 2011, Shepard starred in the film Blackthorn. His final film appearance is Never Here, which premiered in June 2017 but had been filmed in 2014. Shepard also appeared in the television series Bloodline from 2014 to 2017.

Directing

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 of Theatre Genesis. Later, while living at the Flying Y Ranch, Shepard formed a successful playwright-director relationship with Robert Woodruff, who directed the premiere of Buried 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 (Far North and Silent Tongue) but reportedly did not see film directing as a major interest.

Personal life

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 musician Charles Mingus. Shepard then lived with actress Joyce Aaron.

Between 1967 and 1970 he was part of the New York psychedelic rock group The Holy Modal Rounders as drummer, participating in the recording of two albums, Indian War Whoop released in 1967 and The Moray Eels Eat The Holy Modal Rounders in 1968.

From 1969 to 1984, he was married to actress O-Lan Jones, with whom he had one son.

From 1970 to 1971, Shepard was involved in an extramarital affair with musician Patti Smith, who remained unaware of his identity as a multiple Obie Award-winning playwright until it was divulged to her by Jackie 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."

Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell wrote two songs about her affairs with Shepard during Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue tour of 1975. In "Coyote", from her eighth studio album Hejira, 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." Meanwhile, in "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter", written during the same tour, Mitchell referenced the closeness between their birthdays, calling them "twins of spirit".

Shepard met actress Jessica Lange on the set of the 1982 film Frances, in which they were both acting. He moved in with her in 1983, and they were together for 27 years; they separated in 2009. They had two children. In 2003, Shepard's elder son, Jesse, wrote a book of short stories, and Shepard appeared with him at a reading at City Lights Bookstore.

In 2014 and 2015, Shepard dated actress Mia Kirshner.

After a turbulent trip on an airliner returning from Mexico in the 1960s, he apparently vowed never to fly again. 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 film The Right Stuff. Shepard cited his fear of flying as a source for a character in his 1966 play Icarus's Mother. His character went through an airliner crash in the film Voyager.

In the early morning hours of January 3, 2009, Shepard was arrested and charged with speeding and drunk driving in Normal, Illinois. He pleaded 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 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for aggravated drunk driving. Those charges were later dismissed as having no likelihood of conviction at trial.

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 Dark's correspondence, Two Prospectors, was also published that year.

Death

Shepard died on July 27, 2017, at his home in Midway, Kentucky, aged 73, from complications of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Patti Smith paid homage to their long collaboration in The New Yorker. Fellow actor Matthew McConaughey, who had co-starred with Shepard in Mud, learned of Shepard's death during a television interview and was shocked by the news, ending the interview saying: "We lost one of the great ones. Great writer, great line. See you in the next one, Sam."

Archives

Sam Shepard's papers are split between the Wittliff Collections of Southwestern Writers at Texas State University, comprising 27 boxes (13 linear feet) and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, comprising 30 document boxes (12.6 linear feet).

Works

Plays

• 1964: Cowboys
• 1964: The Rock Garden
• 1964: Up to Thursday
• 1965: Chicago
• 1965: Icarus's Mother
• 1965: 4-H Club
• 1966: Red Cross
• 1966: Fourteen Hundred Thousand
• 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
• 1970: Shaved Splits
• 1971: Mad Dog Blues
• 1971: Back Bog Beast Bait
• 1971: Cowboy Mouth (with Patti Smith)
• 1972: The Tooth of Crime
• 1974: Geography of a Horse Dreamer
• 1974: Little Ocean
• 1975: Killer's Head
• 1975: Action
• 1976: Angel City
• 1976: Suicide in B Flat
• 1977: Inacoma
• 1978: Curse of the Starving Class
• 1978: Buried Child
• 1978: Tongues (with Joseph Chaikin)
• 1979: Seduced: a Play in Two Acts
• 1980: True West
• 1981: Savage/Love (with Joseph Chaikin)
• 1983: Fool for Love
• 1984: Country
• 1985: A Lie of the Mind
• 1987: A Short Life of Trouble
• 1987: The War in Heaven (Angel's Monologue) (with Joseph Chaikin and Rick Harris)
• 1991: States of Shock
• 1993: Simpatico
• 1996: When the World Was Green (A Chef's Fable) (with Joseph Chaikin)
• 1996: Tooth of Crime (Second Dance)
• 1998: Eyes for Consuela
• 2000: The Late Henry Moss
• 2004: The God of Hell
• 2007: Kicking a Dead Horse
• 2009: Ages of the Moon
• 2012: Heartless
• 2014: A Particle of Dread (Oedipus Variations)|colwidth=22em}}

Collections

• 1973: Hawk Moon, Black Sparrow Press;
• 1983: Motel Chronicles, City Lights;
• 1984: Seven Plays, Dial Press, 368 pages; . Selected by critic Harold Bloom for inclusion in his list of works constituting the Western Canon.
• 1984: Fool for Love and Other Plays, Bantam Books, 320 pages;
• 1996: The Unseen Hand: and Other Plays, Vintage Books, 400 pages;
• 1996: Cruising Paradise, Vintage Books, 255 pages;
• 2003: Great Dream of Heaven, Vintage Books, 160 pages;
• 2004: Rolling Thunder Logbook, Da Capo Press, 176 pages (reissue);
• 2004: Day Out of Days: Stories, Knopf, 304 pages;
• 2013: Two Prospectors: The Letters of Sam Shepard and Johnny Dark, University of Texas Press, 400 pages;

Novels

• 2017: The One Inside, Knopf, 172 pages;
• 2017: Spy of the First Person, Knopf, 96 pages (published posthumously);

Awards and nominations

Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Sam Shepard

References

References

1. Shewey, Don. (1997). "Sam Shepard". Perseus Books Group.
2. Wetzsteon, Ross. (November 11, 1984). "The Genius of Sam Shepard". [[New York (magazine).
3. (May 2, 1984). "Wim Wenders à propos de Sam Shepard (Video)".
4. Bloom, Harold. (2009). "Harold Bloom's Major Dramatists: Sam Shepard". [[Infobase Publishing]].
5. O'Mahony, John. (October 11, 2003). "The write stuff". [[The Guardian]].
6. "Sam Shepard biography".
7. Shirley, Don. (January 14, 1979). "Searching for Sam Shepard". [[The Washington Post]].
8. Botting, Gary. (1972). "The Theatre of Protest in America". Harden House.
9. (2015). "Production: 'Two One-Act Plays by Sam Shepard' (1965)".
10. (2015). "Production: ''Times Square'', ''Melodrama Play'', and ''Futz'' (1967)".
11. (2015). "Production: ''Unseen Hand, The'' (1969)".
12. (2015). "Production: Two By Sam Shepard (1970)".
13. (2015). "Production: ''Shaved Splits'' (1970)".
14. (2015). "Production: ''Melodrama Play'' (1971)".
15. (2015). "Production: ''Unseen Hand, The'' (1981)".
16. (2015). "Production: ''Tooth of Crime, The'' (1983)".
17. (2015). "Production: ''Superstitions'' and ''The Sad Lament of Pecos Bill on the Eve of Killing His Wife'' (1983)".
18. (2015). "Production: ''Tongues'' and ''Skins'' (1984)".
19. (2015). "Production: ''Geography of a Horse Dreamer'' (1985)".
20. Blackburn, John. (May 1, 1996). "Portrait of the Artist: Sam Shepard and the Anxiety of Identity". University of Virginia.
21. (August 19, 1963). "The Flying Y Ranch". [[San Rafael Daily Independent Journal]].
22. Oldenburg, Chuck. (July 2001). "Where is Homestead Valley?".
23. Oldenburg, Chuck. (August 2013). "4-H Valley Riders".
24. "Flying 'Y' Ranch Owners Association in Mill Valley CA – Company Profile".
25. Amyx, Tim. (June 21, 2011). "Then and Now: Flying Y Ranch and the Dipsea".
26. Meteyer, Michael. (March 29, 2009). "A Horseback Ride With Ferlinghetti".
27. "Dipsea – The Greatest Race, Centennial Edition by Barry Spitz".
28. (February 7, 2017). "Obituary: Lenard Walton". [[Marin Independent Journal]].
29. (February 19, 2015). "No School Bus".
30. "Lucretia Hanson Little History Room – Mill Valley Historical Society 2002 Spring Review".
31. (September 17, 2010). "Obituary: Sandy Young". [[East Bay Times]].
32. "Jesse Mojo Shepard".
33. Benson, Heidi. (February 21, 2003). "Sam Shepard's kid in writing game / Like his father's, Jesse's stories are filled with horses". [[San Francisco Chronicle]].
34. (August 1, 2017). "Sam Shepard, playwright and actor, dead at 73". CNN.
35. (July 31, 2017). "Sam Shepard: US actor and playwright dies aged 73". BBC News.
36. Lee, Ashley. (August 1, 2017). "Broadway to Dim Lights in Memory of Sam Shepard". The Hollywood Reporter.
37. Brantley, Ben. (February 19, 2010). "Theater Review: Home Is Where the Soul Aches". [[The New York Times]].
38. Healy, Patrick. (February 13, 2010). "Getting Faster With Age: Sam Shepard's New Velocity". [[The New York Times]].
39. Kirn, Walter. (January 17, 2010). "Sam Shepard: The Highwayman – Review of ''Day out of Days: Stories'' by Sam Shepard". [[The New York Times]].
40. "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter S".
41. (November 2014). "Feature Films: 'You Were Never Here'".
42. "Bloodline".
43. Morrisroe, Patricia. (1995). "Mapplethorpe: A Biography".
44. Banerji, Atreyi. (February 21, 2021). "The story behind Joni Mitchell's classic song 'Coyote'".
45. David Yaffe, ''Daughter – A Portrait of Joni Mitchell'', Sarah Crichton Books, 2019, pp. 204, 206.
46. Johnson, Zach. (December 19, 2011). "Rep: Jessica Lange and Sam Shepard Have Separated".
47. Sullivan, James. (April 26, 2003). "The Scene: Sam Shepard joins Jesse Shepard for a reading at City Lights". [[San Francisco Chronicle]].
48. [https://www.rexfeatures.com/preview/printable/4267408003 "Sam Shepard and girlfriend Mia Kirshner shopping in Soho, New York, America"], ''rexfeatures.com'', November 23, 2014
49. [https://www.rexfeatures.com/preview/printable/4592814008 "Sam Shepard out and about, New York, America"], ''rexfeatures.com'', March 30, 2015
50. Callens, Mark. (1998). "Sam Shepard V8, Part 4". [[Taylor & Francis]].
51. Kirn, Walter. (May 13, 1996). "Tales of Two Hipsters".
52. Lang, Peter. (2007). "Dis/figuring Sam Shepard". P.I.E Peter Lang.
53. Bottoms, Stephen J.. (1998). "The Theatre of Sam Shepard: States of Crisis". [[Cambridge University Press]].
54. (January 3, 2009). "Sam Shepard Arrested – Blows It Big Time".
55. (February 11, 2009). "Sam Shepard Guilty of Very Drunken Driving".
56. Mackie, Drew. (May 26, 2015). "Actor/Playwright Sam Shepard Arrested on Drunk Driving Charges in Santa Fe".
57. Carrillo, Edmundo. (December 17, 2015). "Playwright Sam Shepard's DWI charge dismissed". [[Albuquerque Journal]].
58. DeMara, Bruce. (March 7, 2013). "Shepard & Dark, a testament to friendship: review". [[Toronto Star]].
59. (November 2013). "Two Prospectors: The Letters of Sam Shepard and Johnny Dark". [[University of Texas Press]].
60. Brantley, Ben. (July 31, 2017). "Sam Shepard, Pulitzer-Winning Playwright and Actor, Is Dead at 73". [[The New York Times]].
61. Hill, Libby. (July 31, 2017). "Sam Shepard, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and Oscar-nominated actor, dies at 73". Los Angeles Times.
62. Desta, Yohana. (July 31, 2017). "Sam Shepard, Prolific Playwright and Actor, Dies at 73".
63. Smith, Patti. (August 1, 2017). "My Buddy".
64. Rubin, Rebecca. (August 1, 2017). "Matthew McConaughey Learned About Sam Shepard's Death on Red Carpet".
65. Associated Press. (2017-07-31). "Matthew McConaughey reacts to the news that Sam Shepard passed away".
66. "Sam Shepard Papers, 1972–1999".
67. Shepard, Sam. "Sam Shepard: An Inventory of His Papers at the Harry Ransom Center".
68. Winters, J.J.. (2017). "Sam Shepard: A Life". Catapult.
69. Bloom, Harold. (1994). "The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages". Harcourt Brace.