spent his childhood on military bases in the United States and Guam before his family settled on a farm in Duarte, California. Shepard worked as a stable hand on a ranch in Chino from 1958 to 1960 and studied agriculture for a year at Mount Antonio Junior College. In 1963, Shepard moved to New York City, where he worked as a busboy at the Village Gate in Greenwich Village and began to write plays for the emerging experimental underground theater scene. He made his debut at Theatre Genesis on October 10, 1964, with the double-billed COWBOY and ROCK GARDEN. In 1965 he presented UP TO THURSDAY and 4-H CLUB at Theatre 65, DOG AND ROCKING CHAIR at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, CHICAGO at Genesis, and ICARUS’S MOTHER at Caffe Cino. Although many mainstream critics were baffled by his raw, chaotic, almost Beckettian pieces, he was soon hailed by the "New York Times" as “the generally acknowledged ‘genius’ of the [Off Off-Broadway] circuit.” In 1966, RED CROSS, CHICAGO, and ICARUS’S MOTHER earned Shepard a trio of "Village Voice" Obie Awards. In 1967 and 1968, Shepard wrote LA TURISTA, his first full-length play, MELODRAMA PLAY, and FORENSIC AND THE NAVIGATORS, all of which also won Obie awards, and COWBOYS #2, which premiered in Los Angeles. In 1969, Shepard began a stint playing drums and guitar with the cult “amphetamine rock band” the Holy Modal Rounders. He continued to write plays, completing HOLY GHOSTLY and THE UNSEEN HAND in 1969, OPERATION SIDEWINDER and SHAVED SPLITS in 1970, MAD DOG BLUES, BACK BOG BEAST BAIT, and COWBOY MOUTH (written with poet/musician Patti Smith) in 1971. He left the Rounders in 1971 and moved to England, where he lived for the next three years. Two notable plays of this period—THE TOOTH OF CRIME (1972, Obie Award) and GEOGRAPHY OF A HORSE DREAMER (1974)—premiered in London. In 1974 Shepard returned to the United States and became the playwright-in-residence at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco, a position he held until 1984. Plays from this period include ACTION (Obie Award, 1974), KILLER’S HEAD (1975), ANGEL CITY (1976), and SUICIDE IN B-FLAT (1976). Beginning in the late 1970s, Shepard applied his unconventional dramatic vision to a more conventional dramatic form, the family tragedy, producing CURSE OF THE STARVING CLASS and BURIED CHILD in 1978 (both of which won Obie Awards) and TRUE WEST in 1980. The three plays are linked thematically in their examination of troubled and tempestuous blood relationships in a fragmented society. Shepard achieved his warmest critical reception with BURIED CHILD, which also won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. Shepard began a new career as a film actor in 1978, appearing in “Renaldo and Clara” and Terrence Malick’s “Days of Heaven.” He also began collaborating with Joseph Chaikin on TONGUES, a stage work with music that was heavily dependent on the theories of Antonin Artaud. Shepard and Chaikin would also collaborate on SAVAGE/LOVE (1979), WAR IN HEAVEN (1985), and WHEN THE WORLD WAS GREEN (A CHEF’S FABLE) (1996). Throughout the 1980s and into the ’90s, Shepard continued to write plays—FOOL FOR LOVE (1983) won Obie awards for best play as well as direction, and A LIE OF THE MIND (1985) garnered the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and Outer Critics Circle Award for outstanding new play—and expand his work in film. As writer/director, he filmed “Far North” and “Silent Tongue,” in 1988 and 1992, respectively. Shepard’s play STAGES OF SHOCK premiered at the American Place Theatre in 1991, and SIMPATICO transferred to the Royal Court Theatre after its premiere in 1994 at the New York Shakespeare Festival. A revised BURIED CHILD, under the direction of Gary Sinise, opened on Broadway in April 1996 and earned a Tony Award nomination. EYES FOR CONSUELA, based on a short story by Octavio Paz, premiered at Manhattan Theatre Club in 1998. The Magic Theatre premiered THE LATE HENRY MOSS, starring Sean Penn and Nick Nolte, before it was moved to the Signature Theatre in New York in 2001. Shepard’s projects also include the short story collection “Great Dream of Heaven” (2002); the plays THE GOD OF HELL (2005) and KICKING A DEAD HORSE, which premiered in Dublin, Ireland, in March 2007 and had its New York premiere in July 2008 at The Public Theater; the films “Black Hawk Down” (actor, 2001), “Don’t Come Knocking” (his second collaboration with Wenders, writer/actor, 2006), “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” (actor, 2007), and “Descending from Heaven” (actor, with Pamela Reed). Shepard is considered one of the foremost modern American playwrights. The Signature Theatre devoted its entire 1996–97 season to his plays. In 1985 he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which awarded him the Gold Medal for Drama in 1992. In 1994 he was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame.