Sam Shepard, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and Oscar-nominated actor whose career spanned almost five decades, has died at 73, according to media reports on Monday.
Shepard died at home in Kentucky of complications from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease reported The New York Times, citing a family spokesman. Shepard wrote nearly 50 plays and won the Pulitzer for drama in 1979 for his play “Buried Child”; he was also nominated for an Academy Award in 1984 for best actor in a supporting role for the 1983 movie “The Right Stuff”.
Shepard wrote nearly 50 plays and won the Pulitzer for drama in 1979 for his play “Buried Child”; he was also nominated for an Academy Award in 1984 for best actor in a supporting role for the 1983 movie “The Right Stuff”.
He played one of his most recent roles in the Netflix television series “Bloodline”.
Born in Fort Sheridan, Illinois in 1943, he was the son of a teacher mother and Army officer father, who remained a bomber pilot during World War II.
He started acting and writing while still in high school, spent a year studying agriculture before joining a traveling theater company and later moved to New York, where he began writing plays.
He wrote the screenplay for “Paris, Texas”, which won the Palme D’Or at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival.
He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1986. His plays are performed on and off Broadway and in all the major regional America.
