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1-4 of 4
- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Sam Shepard was born Samuel Shepard Rogers in Fort Sheridan, IL, to Jane Elaine (Schook), a teacher, and Samuel Shepard Rogers, a teacher and farmer who was also in the army. As the eldest son of a US Army officer (and WWII bomber pilot), Shepard spent his early childhood moving from base to base around the US until finally settling in Duarte, CA. While at high school he began acting and writing and worked as a ranch hand in Chino. He graduated high school in 1961 and then spent a year studying agriculture at Mount San Antonio Junior College, intending to become a vet.
In 1962, though, a touring theater company, the Bishop's Company Repertory Players, visited the town and he joined up and left home to tour with them. He spent nearly two years with the company and eventually settled in New York where he began writing plays, first performing with an obscure off-off-Broadway group but eventually gaining recognition for his writing and winning prestigious OBIE awards (Off-Broadway) three years running. He flirted with the world of rock, playing drums for the Holy Modal Rounders, then moved to London in 1971, where he continued writing.
Back in the US by 1974, he became playwright in residence at San Francisco's Magic Theater and continued to work as an increasingly well respected playwright throughout the 1970s and into the '80s. Throughout this time he had been dabbling with Hollywood, having most notably in the early days worked as one of the writers on Zabriskie Point (1970), but it was his role as Chuck Yeager in 1983's The Right Stuff (1983) (co-starring Fred Ward and Dennis Quaid) that brought him to the attention of the wider, non-theater audience. Since then he has continued to write, act and direct, both on screen and in the theater.
He died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis--commonly known as Lou Gehrig's Disease--in Kentucky on July 27, 2017.- Producer
- Production Designer
- Costume Designer
Polly Platt was born on 29 January 1939 in Fort Sheridan, Illinois, USA. She was a producer and production designer, known for Say Anything (1989), Terms of Endearment (1983) and Broadcast News (1987). She was married to Tony Wade, Peter Bogdanovich and Phillip Klein. She died on 27 July 2011 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA.- Charlotte Merriam born in Illinois in 1903. Her father was a Colonel in the Army. She began her film career in 1919 when she was 16 in The Flip of a Coin (1919). While visiting the Universal studios she was offered a part in a comedy series starring Eddie Lyons and Lee Moran, which she accepted. Afterwards, she starred in many short and feature comedies, also with the Vitagraph Film Company in 1924, and starred in adventure and drama films, including the role of Mary Trail in Captain Blood (1924). Later she worked for the Warner Brothers studios from 1929; she also appeared in many talkies until her last, Dancing Man (1934). She was also a accomplished singer. Married to actor Rex Lease in 1925; divorced in 1929. Died in Los Angeles in 1972, age of 69.
- George Kunz was born on 5 July 1947 in Fort Sheridan, Illinois, USA.