Deaths 2022

Deaths 2021

Deaths 2020

Deaths 2019

Deaths 2018

Deaths 2017

Deaths 2016

Deaths 2015

Deaths 2014

Deaths 2013

Deaths 2012

Deaths 2011

Deaths 2010

Deaths 2009


Full list by date of death

Sam Shepard

Actor/playwright/director

Born - 5 November 1943, Fort Sheridan, Illinois, USA
Died - 27 July 2017

Softly-spoken American Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and on-off actor and singer of lean and shadowed face and dark, tufty hair. A distinctive actor, his characters exuded charisma and authority and he won an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of pilot Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff (1983). Born Samuel Shepard Rogers, he was the son of an Air Force man who retired to be a farmer, and Shepard retained a lifelong love of the country. Despite his writing achievements, he became best known for his acting ability after the late 1970s: Brand X (1970), Renaldo and Clara (1977), Days of Heaven (1978), Resurrection (1980), Raggedy Man (1981), Frances (1982), Country (1984), Fool for Love (1985), Crimes of the Heart (1986), Baby Boom (1987), Steel Magnolias (1989), Voyager (1991), Thunderheart (1992), The Pelican Brief (1993), The Only Thrill (1997), It All Came True (1998), Snow Falling on Cedars (1999), Hamlet (2000), All the Pretty Horses (2000), Swordfish (2001), Black Hawk Down (2001), The Notebook (2004), The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), The Accidental Husband (2008), Fair Game (2010), Blackthorn (2011), Safe House (2012), August: Osage County (2013), Ithica (2015) and Never Here (2017), his last. His two attempts at direction, with Far North (1988) and Silent Tongue (1993) were less successful. His 15-year marriage to actress/writer O-Lan Jones ended in divorce and he lived with actress Jessica Lange from 1982 to 2009. He died from ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease).