Sam Shepard
Acting • Born 1943-11-05 – Died 2017-07-27
Biography
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. He wrote 58 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs. He won 10 Obie Awards for writing and directing, the most by any writer or director. 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 portraying 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 Shepard as "the greatest American playwright of his generation." Shepard's plays are known for their bleak, poetic, surrealist elements, black comedy, and rootless characters living on the outskirts of American society. His style evolved from the absurdism of his early off-off-Broadway work to the realism of later plays like Buried Child and Curse of the Starving Class.
Filmography
80 credits
Black Hawk Down
Movie • 2001
MG William F. Garrison
Voyager
Movie • 1991
Walter Faber
Stealth
Movie • 2005
George Cummings
The Return
Movie • 2006
Ed Mills
Frances
Movie • 1982
Harry York
Don't Come Knocking
Movie • 2005
Howard
Bandidas
Movie • 2006
Bill Buck
Hamlet
Movie • 2000
Ghost
Steel Magnolias
Movie • 1989
Spud Jones
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Movie • 2007
Frank James
The Notebook
Movie • 2004
Frank Calhoun
Baby Boom
Movie • 1987
Dr. Jeff Cooper
The Pledge
Movie • 2001
Eric Pollack
Patti Smith: Dream of Life
Movie • 2008
Self
Leo
Movie • 2002
Vic
Purgatory
Movie • 1999
Sheriff Forrest / Wild Bill Hickock
Blind Horizon
Movie • 2003
Sheriff Jack Kolb
Swordfish
Movie • 2001
Senator Reisman
Thunderheart
Movie • 1992
Frank Coutelle
The Right Stuff
Movie • 1983
Chuck Yeager
Inhale
Movie • 2010
James Harrison
The Pelican Brief
Movie • 1993
Thomas Callahan
Felon
Movie • 2008
Gordon
Charlotte's Web
Movie • 2006
Narrator (voice)
The Accidental Husband
Movie • 2008
Wilder
Country
Movie • 1984
Gil Ivy
Defenseless
Movie • 1991
Det. Beutel
Days of Heaven
Movie • 1978
The Farmer
Killing Them Softly
Movie • 2012
Dillon
Crimes of the Heart
Movie • 1986
Doc Porter
Curtain Call
Movie • 1998
Will Dodge
Safe Passage
Movie • 1994
Patrick
Blackthorn
Movie • 2011
James Blackthorn
Fool for Love
Movie • 1985
Eddie
All the Pretty Horses
Movie • 2000
J.C. Franklin
Kurosawa
Movie • 2000
Narrator (voice)
Safe House
Movie • 2012
Harlan Whitford
Raggedy Man
Movie • 1981
Bailey
Bright Angel
Movie • 1990
Jack Russell
Darling Companion
Movie • 2012
Sheriff Morris
Resurrection
Movie • 1980
Cal
Mud
Movie • 2013
Tom
Shot in the Heart
Movie • 2001
Frank Gilmore, Sr.
After the Harvest
Movie • 2001
Caleb Gare
August: Osage County
Movie • 2013
Beverly Weston
Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction
Movie • 2013
Self
Ruffian
Movie • 2007
Frank Whiteley
Out of the Furnace
Movie • 2013
Gerald 'Red' Baze
Dash and Lilly
Movie • 1999
Dashiell Hammett
Savannah
Movie • 2013
Mr. Stubbs
Lily Dale
Movie • 1996
Pete Davenport
Rosy-Fingered Dawn: A Film on Terrence Malick
Movie • 2002
Self
Cold in July
Movie • 2014
Russell
The Only Thrill
Movie • 1997
Reece McHenry
Brothers
Movie • 2009
Hank Cahill
Shepard & Dark
Movie • 2012
Self
Renaldo and Clara
Movie • 1978
Rodeo
The Good Old Boys
Movie • 1995
Tarnell
Never Here
Movie • 2017
Paul Stark
Ithaca
Movie • 2015
Willie Grogan
Midnight Special
Movie • 2016
Calvin Meyer
One Kill
Movie • 2000
Maj. Nelson Gray
Snow Falling on Cedars
Movie • 1999
Arthur Chambers
The Holy Modal Rounders: Bound to Lose
Movie • 2007
Self
Trudell
Movie • 2005
Self - Playwright, Actor (Thunderheart)
Made in the USA
Movie • 1993
Self
In Dubious Battle
Movie • 2016
Mr. Anderson
Walker Payne
Movie • 2006
Syrus
Brand X
Movie • 1970
This So-Called Disaster
Movie • 2003
Self
California Typewriter
Movie • 2017
Self
MaMa's Pushcart
Movie • 1988
Dear Antonioni
Movie • 1995
Self
Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese
Movie • 2019
The Writer
Fair Game
Movie • 2010
Sam Plame
Streets of Laredo
TV • 1995
Pea Eye Parker
Klondike
TV • 2014
Father Judge
Bloodline
TV • 2015
Robert Rayburn
Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In
TV • 1968
Self (uncredited)
Great Performances
TV • 1971
Self