Actor, playwright Sam Shepard dead at 73
Writer and performer won Pulitzer Prize for Buried Child in 1979 and Oscar nomination for The Right Stuff
CBC News Posted: Jul 31, 2017 11:37 AM ET| Last Updated: Jul 31, 2017 12:43 PM ET
Sam Shepard, who bridged the worlds of theatre and film as an accomplished actor, playwright and director, is dead at 73.
Shepard died at his Kentucky home last Thursday of complications from Lou Gehrig's disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS), according to Chris Boneau, a spokesperson for the Shepard family.
"The family requests privacy at this difficult time," Boneau said in a statement.
Shepard was an award-winning playwright (his Buried Child earned a Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1979), accomplished writer and celebrated actor, picking up an Oscar nomination for The Right Stuff in 1984.
Since the 1960s, Shepard had published dozens of plays that made their way to the stage, developing a reputation for bleak stories about people on the fringes of U.S. society. Cowboys, A Life of the Mind, Fool for Love and his trilogy Chicago, Icarus's Mother and Red Cross are among his many noted stage productions.
He also maintained a career as an actor in Hollywood, with credits including Days of Heaven, Steel Magnolias and Crimes of the Heart, and Netflix's recent series Bloodline.
The multi-disciplined artist has earned praise as a screenwriter (his Paris, Texas, directed by Wim Wenders, was a Cannes Film Festival winner) and for teaching playwriting and leading theatre classes and workshops at universities. He published his most recent book — a novel called The One Inside — in February.
Shepard was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1986. Other career accolades include induction into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 1994, and receiving the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theatre Award recognizing him as a master American dramatist.
Shepard split with his longtime partner Jessica Lange, with whom he had two children, in 2009.
His survivors include their children Hannah and Walker, his son Jesse from his earlier marriage to actress O-Lan Jones, and his sisters, Sandy and Roxanne Rogers.
Funeral arrangements remain private and plans for a public memorial have not yet been determined, according to Boneau.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/obit-sam-shepard-1.4228995
