Anecdotes

Lived with Jessica Lange from 1982 to 2009.

Suffered from fear of flying.

As of 2005 was living with Jessica Lange and their children outside of Stillwater, MN.

He did the rodeo circuit, riding broncs and bulls, including performing in Salinas, CA--the hometown of E.M. Frederic and John Steinbeck.

Has a son named Jesse Mojo Shepard (May 1970) from his marriage to O-Lan Jones and two children, Hannah Jane Shepard (January 11, 1986) and Samuel Walker Shepard (June 14, 1987), from his longtime relationship with Jessica Lange.

By the time he was 30, he had already written 30 produced plays in New York.

Received a 1967 Rockefeller Foundation grant and a 1968 Guggenheim Foundation grant.

He wrote the 1971 play "Cowboy Mouth" with girlfriend Patti Smith and played in the very first production the role of Slim (with Smith in the role of "Cavale"). It is the only time he has played one of his own characters. Just before the second night's performance, Shepard was so disturbed about the experience of playing Slim that he abandoned the role without a word to anyone and left town. He has always had a fear of live audiences.

Collaborated with Bob Dylan in writing the song "Brownsville Girl," which appeared on Dylan's 1986 album "Knocked Out Loaded." The 11-minute song is considered by many to be a bright spot in what was otherwise a creative drought for Dylan from the late 1970s to the early 1990s.

Was the drummer for late 1960s bands "Lothar and the Hand People" and "The Holy Modal Rounders", according to a short interview in the August, 1970 issue of "Playboy" magazine (the former confirmed by the interviewer, who was at the Astor Place Theater in NYC to see a twin-bill of the then-26-year-old Shepard's plays, "The Unseen Hand" and "Forensic and the Navigators") and encountered Shepard drumming away in the lobby with Lothar, et al.

Awarded a fellowship from Yale University in 1968 and one from the University of Minnesota in 1969.

Plays drums and guitar.

Brought up on a succession of military bases before his family settled on a farm near Duarte, CA. Worked in a ranch in Chino between 1958-60.

Son of Jane Elaine (Schook) Rogers (b. 1917) and Samuel Shepard Rogers (died in 1984), both teachers.

Turned down the male lead in 9 semaines 1/2 (1986).

Was a member of the rock band Holy Modal Rounders (1968-71).

Oldest of three children. Had two sisters named Sandy Rogers and Roxanne Rogers.

Brandeis University presented him with the Creative Arts Medal in 1976.

In January 2009 he was arrested for drunk driving in Normal, IL. In May 2015 he was arrested for drunk driving in Santa Fe, NM.

Lived in London, England, between 1971-74.

He played Ethan Hawke's father in both La neige tombait sur les cèdres (1999) and Hamlet (2000).

Was dating Mia Kirshner as of 2014.

His sister Sandy Rogers is a composer and a musician.

His sister Roxanne Rogers, a stage director, graduated in 1978 from Antioch.

He has appeared in two films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Les moissons du ciel (1978) and L'étoffe des héros (1983).

Is the third cast member of Potins de femmes (1989) after Bibi Besch and Bill McCutcheon to pass away, dying 28 years after the film's release.