Oscar Profile #351: Sam Shepard

Born November 5, 1943 in Fort Sheridan, Illinois where his US Army officer father was stationed, Samuel Shepard Rogers, known professionally as Sam Shepard, spent his childhood moving from base to base around the US until the family settled in Duarte, California. He became interested in acting and writing while in high school, while at the same time working as a ranch hand in Chino. Upon graduation in 1961, he entered Mount San Antonio Junior College intent on becoming a veterinarian. A touring theater company in 1962 rekindled the acting bug and he left home to join them.

While working as a busboy at the Village Gate, he became involved in writing plays for Off-Off-Broadway venues, graduating to Off-Broadway, winning six Obies between 1966 and 1968, five of them for Off-Off Broadway productions. 1967’s La Turista earned him his first for an Off-Broadway play. Oh! Calcutta!, for which he was a contributing writer was his first play to be presented on Broadway in 1969. That same year he married actress O-Lan Jones, with whom he had a son born in 1970. From 1970-71 he had an affair with singer-songwriter Patti Smith that ended when he moved with his wife and son to London. They returned in 1975

Still writing plays, while occasionally contributing to film screenplays, Shepard burst upon the screen in an acting role in 1978’s Days of Heaven, all but stealing the film from charismatic star Richard Gere. The following year he earned his second Off-Broadway Obie as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Buried Child. He then won further acclaim as an actor for 1980’s Resurrection opposite Ellen Burstyn, 1981’s Raggedy Man opposite Sissy Spacek and 1982’s Frances opposite Jessica Lange with whom he began a relationship that produced two children, lasting through 1999 when Shepard felt he could no longer live in New York city and moved to Kentucky to raise thoroughbred horses. His relationship with Lange continued off and on through 2010 when they permanently split up.

Shepard received an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of legendary test pilot Chuck Yaeger in 1983’s The Right Stuff. Later films in the 1980s included Country opposite Lange, Baby Boom opposite Diane Keaton and Steel Magnolias opposite Sally Field. His plays during this decade included 1980’s True Westand two more Obie winners, 1984’s Fool for Love and 1985’s A Lie of the Mind. He also starred in the 1985 film version of Fool for Love opposite Kim Basinger.

His films of the 1990s included Thunderheart, The Pelican Brief, Safe Passage and Snow Falling on Cedars. He ended the decade with an Emmy nomination for his portrayal of Dashiell Hammett in Dash and Lily opposite Judy Davis.

Films from 2000 on included All the Pretty Horses, Black Hawk Down, The Notebook, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford/. Brothers, Mud, August: Osage County and Midnight Special.Sam Shepard died of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) at his farm in Kentucky on July 27, 2017, surrounded by his two sisters and three children. Broadway dimmed its lights in his honor on the night of August 2nd.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

DAYS OF HEAVEN (1978), directed by Terrence Malick

Shepard scoffed at the comparisons to Gary Cooper, but his portrayal of the dying farmer in Malick’s masterpiece is reminiscent of Cooper in every way, from his sad-eyed look to his carefully chosen few words. The film is noted for its breathtaking cinematography by Nestor Almendros (Sophie’s Choice, Places in the Heart) with uncredited support from Haskell Wexler (In the Heat of the Night, Bound for Glory) as well as for Malick’s second directorial effort, his last for twenty years, and the enigmatic performances of Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Shepard and Linda Manz.

RESURRECTION (1980), directed by Daniel Petrie

Having burst onto the screen in Days of Heaven, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Buried Child proved that his stellar acting in his debut film was no fluke with his equally iconic portrayal of Ellen Burstyn’s lover in this beautifully made fantasy film in which Burstyn plays a woman whose husband dies in a car crash in which she also dies, albeit momentarily as she is revived with an ability to heal others. The performances of Burstyn, Shepard and Eva Le Gallienne as Burstyn’s grandmother are unforgettable. Burstyn and Le Gallienne were nominated for Oscars, but Shepard was sadly incongruously ignored.

THE RIGHT STUFF (1983), directed by Philip Kaufman

It’s an ironic twist of fate that legendary test pilot Chuck Yeager, who Shepard plays in his only Oscar-nominated performance, is still very much with us at 94, while Shepard is already gone at 73. It’s the film’s affectionate, if no-nonsense, portrayal of Yeager by Shepard that was the heart and soul of the film about the first astronauts who got their vaulted places in recent American history because of the groundwork laid out by Yeager. Many of the film’s fans wished that the rest of it was as good as the Yeager-Shepard part, although in truth, that part with Scott Glenn, Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid, Fred Ward, et. al., was pretty good in its own way as well.

BABY BOOM (1987), directed by Charles Shyer

Most of Shepard’s film roles were either in support of other actors or as one of a large ensemble, but here he got to play one of his few leading man roles as the veterinarian who doubles as a pediatrician when he treats Diane Keaton’s adopted baby in the rural town in which she has come to live. Although Shepard was the film’s leading man, his role is nevertheless limited as the films revolves around Keaton as a transplanted yuppie who moves to Vermont when she inherits a distant relative’s baby. The film was a huge hit at the time and remains relevant and funny as ever, thanks to the beautiful underplaying of Keaton and Shepard.

MUD (2012), directed by Jeff Nichols

This beautifully filmed coming-of-age story set along the Mississippi river, stars Matthew McConaughey as a fugitive being protected by teenagers Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland. Reese Witherspoon co-stars as McConaughey’s white- trash girlfriend and Shepard plays the sensitive assassin who has McConaughey’s back. Writer-director Nichols allows Shepard his trademark slow, deliberative takes to add depth and volume to the film that few other actors are capable of. He’s also memorable in a small role in Nichols’ 2016 film, Midnight Special.