Sam Shepard who wrote several plays including Fool for Love, Operation Sidewinder (a play in two acts), A lie of the mind (a play in three acts), Mad Dog Blues, Back Bog Beast Bait, Cowboy Mouth, The Tooth of Crime, Geography of a Horse Dreamer, Action, Angel City, Suicide in B Flat, Inacoma, Curse of the Starving Class, Buried Child, Tongues, True West, A Short Life of Trouble, Baby Boom, States of Shock, Simpatico, Tooth of Crime, Eyes for Consuela, The Late Henry Moss, The God of Hell, Kicking a Dead Horse, Ages of the Moon, Heartless and A Particle of Dread.
He also acted in several films including The Right Stuff for which he earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Chuck Yeager a former United States Air Force officer and record-setting test pilot.
Shepard was elected to both The American Academy of Arts and Letters and as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1986. During his career he also spent considerable time on teaching and writing about plays and theater in general.