orig. Samuel Shepard Rogers
born Nov. 5, 1943, Fort Sheridan, Ill., U.S.
U.S. playwright and actor.
He worked as an actor and rock musician before turning to playwriting; his early one-act dramas and experimental plays were performed Off-Broadway in the 1960s, winning several Obie Awards. His successful full-length plays, noted for their often surreal images drawn from the American West, science fiction, and popular culture, include The Tooth of Crime (1972), Curse of the Starving Class (1976), Buried Child (1979, Pulitzer Prize), True West (1980), Fool for Love (1983; film, 1985), and Simpatico (1996). He wrote the screenplay for Paris, Texas (1984) and acted in numerous movies, including Days of Heaven (1978) and The Right Stuff (1983).