Sam Shepard was arrested for driving while intoxicated early Saturday morning in Normal, Illinois. The actor, whose blood alcohol level was double the legal limit, was driving from Minnesota to his Kentucky home. While the long-time paramour of Jessica Lange most recognizable for playing Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff (he’s also the guy who yelled “You take my breath away!” to Julia Roberts in The Pelican Brief right before his car blew up), Shepard has been a successful playwright since the 1960′s, winning a Pulitizer Prize for 1979′s The Buried Child.
There’s no reason to take this arrest as a hint of a meltdown. Dude got out of the draft by claiming to be a heroin addict, drummed for the Holy Modal Rounders, and performed a two-person play with Patti Smith about their affair while still married to his first wife. This is in no way a low.
[Photo: Getty]
