Samuel Shepard Rogers III (November 5, 1943 â€" July 27, 2017) was an
American actor, playwright, author, screenwriter, and director whose
career spanned half a century. He won ten Obie Awards for writing and
directing, the most won by any writer or director. He wrote 58 plays
as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs.
Shepard received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play
Buried Child and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best
Supporting Actor for his portrayal of 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.Shepard was
born on November 5, 1943, in Fort Sheridan, Illinois. He was named
Samuel Shepard Rogers III after his father, Samuel Shepard Rogers,
Jr., but was called Steve Rogers. Samuel Shepard Rogers, Jr.
(1917â€"1984) was a teacher and farmer who served in the United States
Army Air Forces as a bomber pilot during World War II. Shepard
characterized his father as "a drinking man, a dedicated alcoholic".
His mother, Jane Elaine (née Schook; 1917â€"1994), was a teacher and
a native of Chicago.
American actor, playwright, author, screenwriter, and director whose
career spanned half a century. He won ten Obie Awards for writing and
directing, the most won by any writer or director. He wrote 58 plays
as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs.
Shepard received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play
Buried Child and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best
Supporting Actor for his portrayal of 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.Shepard was
born on November 5, 1943, in Fort Sheridan, Illinois. He was named
Samuel Shepard Rogers III after his father, Samuel Shepard Rogers,
Jr., but was called Steve Rogers. Samuel Shepard Rogers, Jr.
(1917â€"1984) was a teacher and farmer who served in the United States
Army Air Forces as a bomber pilot during World War II. Shepard
characterized his father as "a drinking man, a dedicated alcoholic".
His mother, Jane Elaine (née Schook; 1917â€"1994), was a teacher and
a native of Chicago.
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