In Memory of Sam Shepard

Sam Shepard, arguably one of America’s finest working actors, screenwriter, director and winner of a Pulitzer Prize has sadly passed away at aged 73.

In his lifetime and successful career Shepard wrote more than fifty-five plays, including True West (1980), and Buried Child (1979), appeared in more than fifty films, such as Days of Heaven (1978) and Steel Magnolias (1989), he was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in The Right Stuff (1983) and most recently performed in Netflix series Bloodlines.

Shepard was a reluctant film star and despite the publicity his work attracted, he remained strongly private, stating numerous times that he would never write a memoir. In 1967, he met Johnny Dark, who would become his closest confidant, muse and eventually father in law. From 1972 onwards the two men began exchanging letters in what would become a correspondence lasting four decades.  

These letters were published in a book; 2 Prospectors: The Letters of Sam Shepard & Johnny Dark and the process of compiling the letters into a book was captured in a powerful, revealing documentary in which the strength of the men’s friendship was quite clear.

In these fascinating, often poignant and brutally honest letters, the men open up to one another. They offer solace, intimate guidance, share what stimulated their thoughts and creative process and even advice for relationships with the women in their lives.