WRITER

Sam Shepard

1943 - 2017

Photo of Sam Shepard

Icon of person Sam Shepard

Samuel Shepard Rogers III (November 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017) was an American playwright, actor, director, screenwriter, and author whose career spanned half a century. He wrote 58 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs. He won 10 Obie Awards for writing and directing, the most by any writer or director. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Sam Shepard has received more than 13,990,789 page views. His biography is available in 52 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 47 in 2019). Sam Shepard is the 1,034th most popular writer (down from 832nd in 2019), the 1,198th most popular biography from United States (down from 974th in 2019) and the 118th most popular American Writer.

Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and author. He is most famous for his plays "Buried Child" and "True West."

Memorability Metrics

  • 14M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 61.47

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 52

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 2.99

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 5.30

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

Great dream of heaven
2002
The unseen hand and other plays
What has contemporary China inherited from its revolutionary past? How do the realities and memories, aesthetics and practices of the Mao era still reverberate in the post-Mao cultural landscape? The essays in this volume propose red legacies as a new critical framework from which to examine the profusion of cultural productions and afterlives of the communist revolution in order to understand Chinaâe(tm)s continuities and transformations from socialism to postsocialism. Organized into five partsâe"red foundations, red icons, red classics, red bodies, and red shadowsâe"the bookâe(tm)s interdisciplinary contributions focus on visual and performing arts, literature and film, language and thought, architecture, museums, and memorials. Mediating at once unfulfilled ideals and unmourned ghosts across generations, red cultural legacies suggest both inheritance and debt, and can be mobilized to support as well as to critique the status quo.
19725 / 5
A lie of the mind
Drama
Currently a critical and box office sensation, Sam Shepard's newest play is amasterpiece of poetic and theatrical brilliance that looks unerringly at loveand family in the American West.
1986
True West
1981
Angel City & other plays
1976
Plays
1981

Among WRITERS

Among writers, Sam Shepard ranks 1,034 out of 7,302. Before him are Jean-Claude Carrière, P. D. James, Charles De Coster, B. H. Liddell Hart, Johanna Schopenhauer, and Marshall Rosenberg. After him are Ľudovít Štúr, Hassan ibn Thabit, Paulinus of Nola, Fyodor Tyutchev, Marcel Pagnol, and D. T. Suzuki.

Most Popular Writers in Wikipedia

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous

Contemporaries

Among people born in 1943, Sam Shepard ranks 82. Before him are David Soul, Arthur Ashe, Roy Andersson, Joni Mitchell, Princess Margriet of the Netherlands, and Chantal Mouffe. After him are John Denver, Piet Keizer, Alain de Benoist, Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Jean-Louis Tauran, and Wolfgang Overath. Among people deceased in 2017, Sam Shepard ranks 62. Before him are Chester Bennington, Peter L. Berger, Mauno Koivisto, John Heard, Yisrael Kristal, and Magdalena Abakanowicz. After him are Piet Keizer, Jake LaMotta, Giovanni Sartori, Jacque Fresco, John Berger, and Albert Speer.

Others Born in 1943

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous

Others Deceased in 2017

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous

In United States

Among people born in United States, Sam Shepard ranks 1,198 out of 20,380. Before him are Edmund Kemper (1948), Herbie Hancock (1940), Dwayne Johnson (1972), Little Richard (1932), Butch Cassidy (1866), and Marshall Rosenberg (1934). After him are John Denver (1943), Norman Rockwell (1894), Ethan Allen (1738), Robert Englund (1947), Fred Trump (1905), and Aileen Wuornos (1956).

Others born in United States

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous

Among WRITERS In United States

Among writers born in United States, Sam Shepard ranks 118. Before him are Jean Webster (1876), Edith Wharton (1862), Noah Gordon (1926), William Gibson (1948), Mary Higgins Clark (1927), and Marshall Rosenberg (1934). After him are Tess Gerritsen (1953), Zelda Fitzgerald (1900), Valerie Solanas (1936), Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840), Michael Connelly (1956), and Norman Mailer (1923).

American born Writers

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous