Sam Shepard And Jessica Lange: Inside Their Firework-Filled 27-Year Romance

Sam Shepard has died at age 73, leaving behind a vast body work as both an actor and a playwright. While he may have been best known for Pulitzer Prize-winning play Buried Child and his Oscar-nominated turn as pilot Chuck Yeager in the 1983 film The Right Stuff, Shepard’s personal life also made headlines. For 27 years, Sam Shepard was in a high-profile relationship with actress Jessica Lange, a romance that was anything but easy.

Sam Shepard and Jessica Lange never married but they were together for 27 years, from 1982 to 2009. The couple met in 1982 on the set of the film Frances where Lange began an on-set affair with Shepard, despite being in a relationship with ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov at the time, according to E! News. The couple would live and work together for the next three decades, sharing roles in the films Country(1984), Crimes of the Heart (1986) and Don’t Come Knocking (2005).

In a 1991 interview with Variety, Jessica Lange said in the early days of her relationship with Sam Shepard they were inseparable.

“Sam and I were so much in love, so wild about each other and being together,” Lange revealed.

“We were absolutely inseparable. We couldn’t even go to the grocery store without each other.”

Jessica and Sam went on to have two children together, daughter Hannah Jane Shepard in 1985 and son Samuel Walker Shepard in 1987. In 2005, the New York Times revealed Sam and Jessica purchased a New York co-op for $3.4 million after owning homes together in New Mexico, Minnesota, and Virginia.

Lange gushed about Shepard to Variety in 1991.

“He’s a great man, a natural man, which is rare,” Lange told Variety.

“I’ve been with a lot of men and I’ve known a lot of men. And you know I’ve had romances with what you’d call famous men, and none compare to Sam in terms of maleness.”

While their relationship lasted almost three decades, it wasn’t without drama. In 2010, Shepard told The Guardian his relationship with Jessica Lange was filled with fireworks, admitting he wasn’t the easiest person to live with.

“I mean, we have long periods of relative calm,” Shepard said.

“But then you know. We’re definitely an incredible match. But, you know, not without fireworks… although at this point, you know, she’s the only woman I could live with. Who could live with me! What other woman would put up with me?”

Shepard also praised Lange, describing his longtime love as the most honest person he’s ever met.

“I’d never met anybody like her,” Sam told The Guardian. “She was astounding. One of the great things about her, aside from her natural beauty, which was remarkable, was her humbleness.”

Interestingly, Shepard didn’t reveal at the time that his relationship with Lange was actually over. While the couple split in 2009, they didn’t publicly announce it until 2011. At the time, a reason for the breakup was not given, but a source told People, “They both are pursuing independent lives.”

Just a few days before San Shepard’s death, Jessica Lange reminisced about her relationship with him to AARP magazine.

“I wouldn’t call Sammy easygoing and funny, but everybody has their dark side, and he always does it with a sense of humor,” Lange said. The actress also revealed that having children with Sam Shepard made her “a different person.”

You can see Sam Shepard and Jessica Lange in the trailer for the 1984 film Country below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3EjvGciyi4

[Featured Image by Evan Agostini/AP Images]