Sam Shepard

Sam Shepard was born in rural Illinois to a farmer and a teacher. He worked on a ranch in his youth before moving to New York in 1962, where he first lived with Charlie Mingus Jr., son of the great jazz bassist. Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, Shepard was involved in both the theatre and in folk music, winning many independent theatre awards and collaborating with such stars as Bob Dylan and Patti Smith, with whom he was romantically involved at the time. Shepard was also a regular at the Chelsea Hotel, which was a hotbed for music, poetry, and theatre. In the mid 1970s, some of his most famous plays were produced in San Francisco, including True West, Curse of the Starving Class, and Buried Child. Buried Child garnered Shepard mainstream attention and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1978. Around this time, Shepard began his career as a film actor. He has written over 40 plays and has acted in well over 50 film and television shows, even earning an Academy Award nomination in 1983. Shepard is also an author, screenwriter, and director of theatre and film.