Sam Shepard, the celebrated avant-garde playwright and Oscar-nominated actor, died on Thursday at his home in Kentucky. He was 73.
A spokesman for the Shepard family said the cause was complications of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease.
One of the most important and influential early writers in the Off Broadway movement, Mr. Shepard captured and chronicled the darker sides of American family life in plays like "Buried Child," which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1979, and "Curse of the Starving Class" and "A Lie of the Mind."