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Sam Shepard portrayed Chuck Yeager in the 1983 film “The Right Stuff.” As a playwright, he was known for artful ambiguity.
The Ladd Company; thumbnail, Chad Batka for The New York Times, 2016
Sam Shepard
Died on July 27, 2017 at age 73
Mr. Shepard’s hallucinatory plays, like “True West” and the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Buried Child,” redefined the landscape of the American West and its inhabitants. He was also a familiar presence as an actor in films like “Days of Heaven,” “Baby Boom” and “The Right Stuff.”
Notable Deaths 2017
Remembering Mary Tyler Moore, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lewis, David Rockefeller, Trisha Brown, Glen Campbell, Dick Gregory, Edith Windsor, Sam Shepard, Tom Petty and many others who died this year.