Sam Shepard

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American playwright, actor, author, screenwriter, and director, whose body of work spanned over half a century. As a dramatist he was involved in the off-Broadway revolution and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1979. By 1998, he had some 40 stage plays to his credit. With a romantic feeling for the American landscape, he creating weird dreamlike terrains in his plays representative of the American wasteland, a place where past and present coexist. The heroes of his writing often range as widely as his interests. His works include "Sidewinder" (1970), "Tooth Of Crime" (1972), "Angel City" (1976), and "Buried Child" (1979), the work for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. Very private, an elusive personality, he himself is as mysterious as his writing. To many, he is better known for his role as an actor, appearing in about 20 movies which include "The Right Stuff." Shepard is an ex-heroin junky. He and Jessica Lange were companions; two kids. Also one son from a previous relationship. Shepard died on 27 July 2017 at his home in Kentucky, aged 73, from complications due to ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). Link to Wikipedia biography