Sam Shepard "The thinking woman's beefcake"

Born Samuel Shepard Rogers IV on Nov. 5, 1943 in Ft. Sheridan, Illinois, Shepard was the oldest of three children. (Sam Shepard would later change his name--reportedly because "Steve Rogers was the name of the original Captain America.)

Sam's father, Sam Rogers, Sr. was in the Army and he and his wife, Jaine Elaine Shook (from Chicago) frequently moved around between various army bases. Shepard's alcoholic father "had a real short fuse," Sam told biographer Don Shewey, and he was often the target of his father's anger.

Eventually, the family settled in California, where they raised sheep and grew avocados in their farm in Duarte. Shepard's youth was shadowed by his father's deeper descent into alcoholism and the deterioration of the family.

Shepard described Duarte as a "weird accumulation of things, a strange kind of melting pot -Spanish, Okie, Black, Midwestern elements all jumbled together. There were a good many people on the move living there who couldn't move anymore, and just wound up living in trailer parks.

It was in high school there that he began acting and writing poetry. He took little interest in his classes, but read poetry and played drums in a garage band. During his teenage years, he readily admits that reading Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot was a revelation for him and Shepard's early plays particularly show that absurdist influence.

Later, contemplating becoming a veterinarian, Shepard studied agriculture at Mount Antonio Junior College for a year. During that period, he would also find work as a stable hand, herdsman, orange picker, sheep shearer, bus boy, waiter and musician

When a traveling theater group, called Bishop's Company Repertory Players, came through town, Shepard joined up and left home. After touring with them during 1962-1963, he moved to New York City and worked as a bus boy at the Village Gate in Greenwich Village. During this time Shepard began experimenting with illicit drugs and began his musical career as a drummer for the eccentric late 1960s rock band Holy Modal Rounders, featured in the movie Easy Rider.