Sam Shepard

Son of Jane Elaine (Schook) Rogers (b. 1917) and Samuel Shepard Rogers (died in 1984), both teachers.

Brought up on a succession of military bases before his family settled on a farm near Duarte, CA. Worked in a ranch in Chino between 1958-60.

Was the drummer for late 1960s bands "Lothar and the Hand People" and "The Holy Modal Rounders", according to a short interview in the August, 1970 issue of "Playboy" magazine (the former confirmed by the interviewer, who was at the Astor Place Theater in NYC to see a twin-bill of the then-26-year-old Shepard's plays, "The Unseen Hand" and "Forensic and the Navigators") and encountered Shepard drumming away in the lobby with Lothar, et al.

Sam Shepard was born Samuel Shepard Rogers in Fort Sheridan, IL, to Jane Elaine (Schook), a teacher, and Samuel Shepard Rogers, a teacher and farmer who was also in the army. As the eldest son of a US Army officer (and WWII bomber pilot), Shepard spent his early childhood moving from base to base around the US until finally settling in Duarte, CA. While at high school he began acting and writing and worked as a ranch hand in Chino. He graduated high school in 1961 and then spent a year studying agriculture at Mount San Antonio Junior College, intending to become a vet.

In 1962, though, a touring theater company, the Bishop's Company Repertory Players, visited the town and he joined up and left home to tour with them. He spent nearly two years with the company and eventually settled in New York where he began writing plays, first performing with an obscure off-off-Broadway group but eventually gaining recognition for his writing and winning prestigious OBIE awards (Off-Broadway) three years running.

Received a 1967 Rockefeller Foundation grant and a 1968 Guggenheim Foundation grant.

Was a member of the rock band Holy Modal Rounders (1968-71).

Throughout this time he had been dabbling with Hollywood, having most notably in the early days worked as one of the writers on Zabriskie Point (1970), but it was his role as Chuck Yeager in 1983's The Right Stuff (1983) (co-starring Fred Ward and Dennis Quaid) that brought him to the attention of the wider, non-theater audience. Since then he has continued to write, act and direct, both on screen and in the theater.

He flirted with the world of rock, playing drums for the Holy Modal Rounders, then moved to London in 1971, where he continued writing.

Back in the US by 1974, he became playwright in residence at San Francisco's Magic Theater and continued to work as an increasingly well respected playwright throughout the 1970s and into the '80s.

Brandeis University presented him with the Creative Arts Medal in 1976.

His sister Roxanne Rogers, a stage director, graduated in 1978 from Antioch.

Has a son named Jesse Mojo Shepard (May 1970) from his marriage to O-Lan Jones and two children, Hannah Jane Shepard (January 13, 1986) and Samuel Walker Shepard (June 14, 1987), from his longtime relationship with Jessica Lange.

Is the third cast member of Steel Magnolias (1989) after Bibi Besch and Bill McCutcheon to pass away, dying 28 years after the film's release.

He played Ethan Hawke's father in both Snow Falling on Cedars (1999) and Hamlet (2000).

As of 2005 was living with Jessica Lange and their children outside of Stillwater, MN.

In January 2009 he was arrested for drunk driving in Normal, IL. In May 2015 he was arrested for drunk driving in Santa Fe, NM.