Widely considered one of America's greatest living playwrights, Sam Shepard is also an accomplished actor, director, screenwriter, and musician. Born Samuel Shepard Rogers IV on Nov. 5, 1943 in Ft. Sheridan, Illinois, Shepard was the oldest of three children. His family traveled widely before settling in Duarte, California, outside of Pasadena, where his childhood experiences informed themes that mark much of his later playwriting. Shepard described Duarte as a "weird accumulation of things, a strange kind of melting pot - Spanish, Okie, Black, Midwestern elements all jumbled together. People on the move who couldn't move anymore, who wound up in trailer parks." (Rolling Stone, 1986). Shepard's alcoholic father "had a real short fuse," he told biographer Don Shewey, and Shepard was often the target of his father's anger. In high school he began acting and writing poetry, and he also worked as a stable hand at a horse ranch in Chino from 1958-1960. Thinking of becoming a veterinarian, Shepard studied agriculture at Mount Antonio Junior College for a year; but when a traveling theater group, the Bishop's Company Repertory Players came through town, Shepard joined up and left home. After touring with them during 1962-1963, he moved to New York City and worked as a bus boy at the Village Gate in Greenwich Village.

There Shepard spent much of his time reading the works of playwrights and writing short "rock and roll" plays which frequently focused "on a single event, the characters often talking past one another or breaking into long monologues. However puzzling the action, these plays already ring out with Shepard's deft rhythms," (Contemporary Dramatists, 1999). Shepard disavowed the narrative convention that required consistent character motivations, preferring instead to see his characters as capable of a wide variety of roles and actions. Shepard once told an interviewer that, "I preferred a character that was constantly unidentifiable, shifting through the actor, so that the actor could play almost anything, and the audience was never expected to identify with the characters," (Shewey, Sam Shepard, 1997, p 51). Shepard reconsidered this initial approach to his writing as a result of the influence of New York director and acting teacher Joseph Chaikin.

Shepard's playwriting debut took place at Theater Genesis on October 16, 1964, with a double bill of COWBOYS and ROCK GARDEN. In 1966, he received a grant from the University of Minnesota, the first of several he would receive in the coming years. Also in 1966, he won an unprecedented trio of Obie awards for CHICAGO, ICARUS' MOTHER, and RED CROSS. The awards, presented by off-off-Broadway champion The Village Voice, helped Shepard's career gain momentum at a time when mainstream critics remained wary of his works.

In 1967, Shepard wrote LA TURISTA, his first full-length play, which won an Obie in 1967. More Obies for early works followed, including MELODRAMA PLAY and COWBOYS #2 in 1968. Shepard also received grants from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1967 and the Guggenheim Foundation in 1968. Also in 1968, Shepard joined a rock band, the Holy Modal Rounders, playing drums and guitar. Although he played with the band for three years, he continued to write and received a second Guggenheim Foundation grant in 1971.

Shepard married actress O-Lan Jones Dark on November 9, 1969, with whom he had one son, Jesse Mojo Shepard. They divorced in 1984. In 1971, Shepard had a much-publicized relationship with rock singer and poet Patti Smith. Together they wrote COWBOY MOUTH, acting the parts on stage in the first night's performance.

In 1971, Shepard and family traveled to England, where four more plays premiered (THE TOOTH OF CRIME, BLUE BITCH, GEOGRAPHY OF A HORSE DREAMER and LITTLE OCEAN). TOOTH OF CRIME was later presented in the U.S., winning an Obie in 1973. The next year, Shepard returned to the United States and served as the playwright in residence for The Magic Theater in San Francisco, a post he held for the next ten years. It was during this time that Shepard made his mark on mainstream American drama, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play BURIED CHILD and producing his best-known plays, among them, TRUE WEST in 1980.

In 1975, he took part in Bob Dylan's "Rolling Thunder Revue", a nationwide touring group that included Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs. Shepard eventually published an account of the experience in 1987, titled ROLLING THUNDER LOGBOOK. In 1978, Shepard began his film career, appearing in Bob Dylan's film Renaldo and Clara and later that year in DAYS OF HEAVEN, directed by Terrence Mallick. Also in 1978, Shepard began his collaboration with Joseph Chaikin, with the theater piece, TONGUES. Chaikin and Shepard would also collaborate on SAVAGE/LOVE (1979), and THE WAR IN HEAVEN, which was presented on WBAI radio in 1985.

In the 1980s, his works continued to win awards. He won his eleventh Obie for FOOL FOR LOVE (1984.) A LIE OF THE MIND won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award in 1986. Also during the 1980s, Shepard's screenwriting and acting career began to grow. Screenplays included ME AND MY BROTHER, ZABRISKIE POINT, FOOL FOR LOVE. His most popular and critically acclaimed film, PARIS, TEXAS, won a Golden Palm Award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1984. This screenplay was a work commissioned by German director Wim Wenders, and was based loosely on Shepard's Motel Chronicles. His acting roles included RESURRECTION (1980), RAGGEDY MAN, FRANCES (1982), THE RIGHT STUFF (1983), for which he received an Academy Award nomination, COUNTRY (1984), FOOL FOR LOVE (1985), CRIMES OF THE HEART (1986), and STEEL MAGNOLIAS (1989). He wrote and directed FAR NORTH (1988), which starred Jessica Lange.

Shepard continued to write new plays in the 1990s, though his output has slowed from the dizzying pace of the 1960s-1970s. STATES OF SHOCK premiered in 1991, in 1992 a revised version of  TRUE WEST was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Drama, SIMPATICO opened in 1994, his revision of BURIED CHILD opened on Broadway in 1996 and received a Tony Award nomination, another collaboration with Joseph Chaikin: WHEN THE WORLD WAS GREEN (A Chef's Fable) also premiered in 1996. Shepard's collection of stories, CRUISING PARADISE, was published by Knopf in 1996. CURSE OF THE STARVING CLASS opened in 1997, EYES FOR CONSUELA (based on an Octavio Paz short story) was produced in 1998. In 2001, Shepard returned to San Francisco's The Magic Theater for the premiere of his new play THE LATE HENRY MOSS.

Shepard's screen acting career also continued to flourish in the 1990s, with appearances in DEFENSELESS (1991), THUNDERHEAD (1992), THE PELICAN BRIEF (1993) and SAFE PASSAGE (1994), among others. Shepard wrote and directed the feature film SILENT TONGUE (1992). He also appeared in ALL THE PRETTY HORSES (2000), based on the novel of the same name by Cormac McCarthy.

Over the past ten years he has made eight television films, notably A&E's DASH & LILY (1994). Since 2000 he has continued acting in films each year - BLACK HAWK DOWN (2001), THE NOTEBOOK (2004). In 2005 DON'T COME KNOCKING premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. Written in collaboration with Wim Wenders, Sam co-stars with Jessica Lange in this Wenders-directed film. In 2006 he will be appearing as Frank James in the Brad Pitt western, THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD.

Sam returned to the stage in December 2004 when he received plaudits playing Salter, the father in Caryl Churchill's NY's presentation of A NUMBER. His latest play, a political drama called GOD OF HELL, opened off-Broadway in October 2004.

Shepard was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letter in 1986. In 1992, he received the Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy and in 1994 he was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame.

Shepard currently lives with actress Jessica Lange, with whom he has lived since the early 1980s. The couple have two children, Hannah Jane Shepard and Samuel Walker Shepard.

Shepard's impact on modern theater can be gauged by the numerous scholarly books and articles devoted to his work, as well as the hundreds of productions of his plays, both in the U.S. and abroad.