Samuel Shepard Rogers III (November 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017) was an American actor, playwright, author, director and screenwriter whose career spanned half a century. He won 10 Obie Awards for writing and directing, the most by any writer or director. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child (which was nominated for five Tony Awards) and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of pilot Chuck Yeager in the 1983 film The Right Stuff. He received the PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award as a master American dramatist in 2009. New York magazine described him as "the greatest American playwright of his generation." He wrote 58 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs. As an actor, his best known roles are as Calvin Meyer in Midnight Special, Robert Ra...read more