A writer whose acting radiated honesty
Multitalented Sam Shepard was a specialist in onscreen authenticity
“I didn’t go out of my way to get into the movie stuff,” Sam Shepard once said. “I think of myself as a writer.” And in the end, it’s as a playwright that Shepard, who died on Thursday, July 27, at age 73, probably will be most remembered.
But then again, maybe not. Plays have to be produced and rehearsed and presented to the public. But movies are everywhere, and Shepard not only made a lot of them, but lots of very good ones — including “The Right Stuff,” “Crimes of the Heart,” “Voyager,” “The Assassination of Jesse James,” “Frances” and “Cold in July” — spread out over three decades. He distinguished himself in these films as a strong and distinct screen presence.
Shepard seemed incapable of a dishonest moment. Whatever he showed you was only a fraction of what he was thinking or feeling — or at least that’s the illusion he cultivated. He was afraid of flying and went out of his way to avoid air travel, and yet he was convincing as the renowned test pilot Chuck Yeager: The scene in which he pushed a plane to the breaking point and walks away, charred but unscathed, is one of the indelible moments of his screen career. He was nominated for an Acad-
emy Award for his performance.
In his younger years, in his late 30s and early 40s, he was something close to a sex symbol — not a general public sex symbol, but one for the thinking woman. (In 1984, a female theater professor told me in awestruck terms that she had just been in a room with Sam Shepard and that he was the most attractive man she’d ever met.) Shepard was cool, but not cool in a self-loving way. His coolness had a philosophical aura.
The aura suggested that life was essentially a sad adventure that rendered all pretense absurd, so why not be authentic? His emotional honesty, tempered by reticence and natural dignity, called forth honesty from other people. He never seemed like he was too cool for others, but rather that he judged nobody, that he assumed that nobody was better than he was, or worse. He had a sureness grounded, paradoxically, in a philosophical acceptance of uncertainty. His best film along this line was “Voyager” (1991), an Englishlanguage film by the German director Volker Schlondorff.
Shepard’s equanimity, which added to his attractiveness as a younger man, gave gravity to the roles of his later years. He seemed like he’d seen it all — he played the Ghost in Michael Almereyda’s modern-dress “Hamlet” (2000), and that seemed right.
Shepard seemed like he’d done it all, too — perhaps some really, really bad things. He was absolutely chilling in “Cold In July” (2014), as an old man looking to avenge the death of his son, who was killed while burglarizing a house. He finds the man who killed him and says, “That son of yours — he looks just like you.” That’s it. Nine little words, spoken softly, with a little smile, and everyone in the audience thinks ... oh, no.
As a writer, Shepard was drawn to myth. As an actor, he had a mythic quality. Walking out from the debris smoke in “The Right Stuff,” he wasn’t just a lucky guy, but a spirit that couldn’t be killed. Fortunately, the spirit that was Shepard was captured on celluloid, so other generations will enjoy it.