Jessica Lange Former Partner: Meet Sam Shepard

Sam Shepard was an American actor, playwright, author, screenwriter, and director. He was the partner of actress Jessica Lange for over 27 years.

The former couple met on the set of the 1982 film Frances, in which they were both acting. He moved in with her in 1983, and they separated in 2009.

They had two children, Hannah Jane Shepard and Samuel Walker Shepard. In 2003, Shepard’s elder son, Jesse, wrote a book of short stories, and Shepard appeared with him at a reading at City Lights Bookstore.

Sam Shepard received the most Obie Awards for writing and directing, with ten. He wrote 58 plays and several collections of short stories, essays, and memoirs.

Sam Shepard won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child, and he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1983 for his role as pilot Chuck Yeager in the film The Right Stuff.

In 2009, he was named a master American dramatist by the PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award. Shepard was dubbed “the greatest American playwright of his generation” by New York magazine.

Sam Shepard died on July 27, 2017, at his home in Midway, Kentucky, aged 73, from complications of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).