Sam Shepard, the celebrated avant-garde playwright and Oscar-nominated actor, died Monday. Obituary,
Sam Shepard, the celebrated avant-garde playwright and Oscar-nominated actor, died Thursday at his home in Kentucky of complications from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, a spokesman for the Shepard family announced Monday. He was 73.
One of the most important and influential early writers in the off-Broadway movement, Mr. Shepard captured and chronicled the darker sides of American family life in plays like “Buried Child,” which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1979, “Curse of the Starving Class” and “A Lie of the Mind.”
He was widely regarded as one of the most original voices of his generation, winning praise from critics for his searing portraits of spouses, siblings and lovers struggling with issues of identity, failure and the fleeting nature of the American dream. He was nominated for two other Pulitzers, for “True West” and “Fool for Love,” which both received Broadway productions.
“I always felt like playwriting was the thread through all of it,” Mr. Shepard said in 2011. “Theater really when you think about it contains everything. It can contain film. Film can’t contain theater. Music. Dance. Painting. Acting. It’s the whole deal. And it’s the most ancient. It goes back to the Druids. It was way pre-Christ. It’s the form that I feel most at home in, because of that, because of its ability to usurp everything.”
Memorably, Mr. Shepard’s award-winning play “Buried Child” was performed in 1980 by Pittsburgh Public Theater. The play was a “shocking” departure from more mainstream fare, noted Chris Rawson, Pittsburgh PostGazette senior theater critic. The Public also did Mr. Shepard’s “True West” in 2013.
Mr. Shepard was also an accomplished actor, nominated for an Academy Award for his supporting role in “The Right Stuff.” His most recent work was in the Netflix show “Bloodline,” where he appeared as the character of Robert Rayburn. He also appeared on New York stages, winning strong reviews for his performance in the off-Broadway production of Caryl Churchill’s “A Number” in 2004.
Working at off-Broadway landmarks like La MaMa and Caffe Cino, Mr. Shepard almost immediately received critical acclaim upon embarking on his career, winning Obie Awards for “Chicago” and “Icarus’s Mother” in 1965 and then “Red Cross” and “La Turista” in 1966. He would win seven more.
Mr. Shepard played aging outlaw Butch Cassidy in “Blackthorn” in 2011.
He was in Western Pennsylvania in 2012 to shoot director Scott Cooper’s “Out of the Furnace,” a dark family drama set in Braddock.
Christian Bale and Casey Affleck play the nephews of Mr. Shepard. Woody Harrelson, Zoe Saldana, Forest Whitaker and Willem Dafoe also starred in the film, which was shot in Braddock, Rankin and other Pittsburgh-area locations for more than a month.
In a 2013 interview with Collider.com, Mr. Shepard talked about researching his role: “I think we did make a stab at trying some of the colloquialisms, trying some of the vernacular.
“It’s a strange little neck of the woods … there are some words that are very Southern and almost Irish. … ‘Yinz’ for ‘y’all’ like in the deeper South. … Things like that are useful in organizing the way you speak and it’s not simply for authenticity, it’s also the rhythm and the structure that gives a different feel.”
Pittsburgh playwright Tammy Ryan shared her first memory of a Shepard play, in her first college class, Intro to Theater, in 1980.
She was reading her way through the syllabus and recognized the genius in works such as “Death of a Salesman” and “A Streetcar Named Desire.”
“But they did not touch me then, not really,” she wrote. “And then I read ‘Buried Child’ and was stopped in my tracks. I could hear this play. I could feel this play. Oh, my god, I didn't know you could do that. I found my way in.”
Pittsburgh actor-director Patrick Jordan of barebones productions acted in two Shepard plays, “Buried Child” for Pittsburgh Playhouse REP and “The Late Henry Moss” for Saints & Poets Theater.
“To me there is Tennessee Williams and Sam Shepard. Then you have everyone else,” Mr. Jordan said.
“I know I am not alone in this,” he added, “but his work is a huge reason I am an actor and produce plays. He wrote about people and issues that spoke to me and people I grew up with. The shows were nuanced and heightened, while being visceral and dangerous.”
Mr. Jordan said he often thinks of a line by Shepard from a Paris Review article in 1977, one that is particularly fitting now: “The most authentic endings are the ones which are already revolving towards another beginning. That’s genius,” Shepard wrote.
Mr. Shepard is survived by his children — Jesse, Hannah and Walker Shepard — and his sisters, Sandy and Roxanne Rogers.