(born 1943) Playwright and actor. Shepard has written more than forty plays, generally produced offBroadway. These often explore family dynamics as well as the intersection of representation and reality in the West. He won a Pulitzer Prize for Buried Child (1979).

At the same time, Shepard has developed an active career both behind and in front of the movie camera, adapting his work as the screenplay for Wim Wender’s Paris, Texas, 1984, and bringing a lank, laconic presence to many Hollywood roles. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his depiction of Chuck Yaeger in The Right Stuff (l983).