Sam Shepard
Born: November 5 1943
Where: Fort Sheridan, Illinois, USA
The Oscar nominated actor and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright has made a name for himself in rugged all-American roles.
Acting highlights have included Days of Heaven and his Academy Award-nominated turn as US test pilot Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff.
However, he also won the Pulitzer Prize for the play Buried Child, was one of the writers on Zabriskie Point and penned the screenplay for Paris, Texas.
Raised on military bases and eventually on a farm, he moved to New York in the 1960s, where he tried his hand at directing before turning to writing.
Musical sketches and theatre direction led Shepard in the direction of the big screen and in 1969 he wrote the screenplay for Me and My Brother.
Changing careers, he went on tour in 1975 as a drummer with Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue and made his film debut in the singer/songwriter's movie Renaldo and Clara two years later.
On screen, he had more success opposite Richard Gere in Terrence Malick's drama and went on to impress in Resurrection and Raggedy Man.
He starred opposite his long-term partner Jessica Lange in Frances before his Oscar-nominated turn in Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff in 1983.
He re-teamed with Lange in Country and Crimes of the Heart and played the lead in Robert Altman's adaptation of his play Fool For Love.
He was a genial leading man opposite Diane Keaton in Baby Boom and stayed with the rom-com style for Steel Magnolias with Dolly Parton.
Shepard portrayed cops in Defenseless and Thunderheart as well as the flawed lawyer lover of Julia Roberts in The Pelican Brief.
Subsequent outings included the thriller Snow Falling on Cedars, All The Pretty Horses and Sean Penn's sublime whodunnit The Pledge.
In 2001, he starred alongside John Travolta in the action thriller Swordfish and played a military commander in Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down.
His shifty naval commander in the gung-ho aerial action thriller Stealth commanded attention, but his performance and screenplay for Wim Wenders' dusty drama Don't Come Knocking met with less than favourable reviews.
