SHEPARD WAS ‘ SO RECOGNIZABLY AMERICAN’
Actor, Pulitzer- winning playwright dies at 73
Sam Shepard, the handsome rock and roll cowboy whose work as a playwright, screenwriter, actor and director from the 1960s onward served up emblematic portraits of the dystopian American dream, the breakdown of the American family and the destruction of the mythic vision of the American West, died Thursday. He was 73.
Mr. Shepard had been ill with ALS ( Lou Gehrig’s disease) for some time and reportedly died peacefully at his home in Kentucky, surrounded by his children and sisters, according to a family spokesperson who announced his passing on Monday.
Mr. Shepard’s work ( he wrote more than 40 plays) was championed by Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre, whose 1982 production of “TrueWest” ( directed by Gary Sinise and starring John Malkovich and Sinise) became an off- Broadway hit and aired on the PBS series “American Playhouse” in 1984. The company’s 1995 revival of “Buried Child” ( for which the playwright had received a 1979 Pulitzer Prize for drama) began in Chicago with a cast that included Ethan Hawke and Lois Smith, and moved to Broadway in 1996.
Born Nov. 5, 1943, in Fort Sheridan, Illinois, Sam Shepard was the son of a father who served as a U. S. Army Air Force bomber pilot in WorldWar II, and whose alcoholism and paternal absenteeism became an abiding theme in his plays. His mother, a Chicago native, was a teacher.
Mr. Shepard grew up in California, and early on became hooked on the absurdist dramas of Samuel Beckett, as well as jazz and the work of the Abstract Expressionist painters. By the early 1960s, he had moved to New York and became involved in the burgeoning off- off- Broadway scene of the period. Between 1966 and 1984, he would win 11 Obie Awards, for such plays as “The Tooth of Crime” and “Fool for Love.”
“The interesting thing about Sam’s plays are how pliable they are,” said actor John Malkovich, reached by phone on Monday. “He loved surprises; he loved to see what was going to happen. And I think that’s one big reason why Steppenwolf loved his work and why he had an affection for Steppenwolf.
“He also was so recognizably American. You felt the great freedom he had in making his plays, and in the way individual actors could play them— the way you could move things around and the play would move with you. That’s not something you could do with Harold Pinter or Tom Stoppard.”
Many of Mr. Shepard’s most renowned works were created during his time as playwright- in- residence at San Francisco’s Magic Theatre, starting in 1975. They included the aforementioned “Buried Child” and “True West,” as well as “Fool for Love” ( 1983), about the encounter between a woman and her ex- lover in a run- down motel in the Mojave Desert; and “A Lie of the Mind” ( 1985), the tale of two families dealing with a life- altering case of marital violence.
With his lean figure and latter- day Marlboro Man good looks, Mr. Shepard also forged a significant place as a film actor with memorable early roles in “Days of Heaven” ( 1978), “Frances” ( 1982), “The Right Stuff” ( 1983), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award as best supporting actor, “Steel Magnolias,” and dozens more, up until his final role in “Never Here,” a thriller that premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival in June.
“There was not much narcissism in Sam,” said Malkovich, who described the playwright as “super American, incredibly authentic, free of b-------, quick to laugh, horse crazy, and with a humility that was very charming. He also led an interesting life, and tried to stay out of the spotlight asmuch as possible. I think he was amused by being amovie actor. . . . But he was essentially a theater person, with all that is organic and ephemeral about the live stage.”
Mr. Shepard was married from 1969 to 1984 to actress O- Lan Jones, with whom he had son Jesse Mojo Shepard. While making “Frances,” he met Jessica Lange, and the two remained together for nearly 30 years. They had two children, Hannah Jane and Samuel Walker. They separated in 2009.
Mr. Shepard’s TV credits include “Bloodline,” “Klondike” and the “Lonesome Dove” sequel “Streets of Laredo.”
His full- length work of fiction, “The One Inside,” came out earlier this year. The book is a highly personal narrative about a man looking back on his life and taking in what has been lost, including control over his own body as the symptoms of ALS advance.
Mr. Shepard is survived by his children and his sisters, Sandy and Roxanne Rogers. Funeral arrangements remain private.