“You go through life, you’re kind of in love, and then suddenly you have a great love,”
Jessica Lange once reflected on her relationship with Sam Shepard.
They worked incredibly hard to stay together, despite all the ups and downs that came along
the way.
But the love affair between Shepard and Lange was doomed to fail.
Here’s a closer look at why their happiness couldn’t stand a chance after almost three
decades of a passionate romance.
Back in the day, Lange could hardly imagine their breakup.
When being asked about the possibility that Shepard could leave her, she said in a famous
interview with Vanity Fair, “You get inextricable connections with people…
Sam actually buried my dad–he dug the grave.
I was the one who told him his dad died.
He was with me when I gave birth to two children.”
But it happened – Lange and Shepard broke up decades after she said those words.
You might not know about their passionate love story.
Lange and Shepard were swept away by mutual attraction from the first time they saw each
other.
The renowned actress shared the details of the early days of their romance, "Sam and
I were so much in love, so wild about each other and being together.
We were absolutely inseparable.
We couldn’t even go to the grocery store without each other."
Despite their public profiles, both actors kept the details of their private life under
wraps for most of their careers, saving details for an interview here and there.
But the complexity of their relationship began to be more apparent when the couple finally
split up.
In 2010, Shepard opened up about his tumultuous relationship with Lange.
He reflected on years of being with Lange, “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.
What other woman would put up with me?”
Sam and Jessica dated for years — and didn't always have it easy.
In letters to a friend, the late Shepard wrote about his tumultuous romance with the love
of his life.
Shepard revealed that he once proposed to her in the corniest way possible.
What’s more, his horrible bouts of drinking and bad behaviors
eventually led to their breakup almost 30 years later.
One of the letters recounts how Shepard, who met Lange on the set of the film Frances in
the 1980s, became overwhelmed with the desire to propose to her in December 1983 while they
were filming Country in Iowa.
After picking out an antique sapphire ring, he asked her to marry him.
“I swept her outside into the cold wind and snow and popped the question.
We jumped up and down together like little kids, giggling in the snow,” he recalled.
The couple never wed, though they stayed together until 2009.
But what did eventually destroy the bond between famous actors?
At the time when Shepard and Lange met, he was a married man in a relationship that had
lasted for more than ten years.
Shepard once recalled that the separation with the ex-wife took its toll on his life,
leaving a deep scar that would never heal.
“The thing that hurts me the most is knowing I abandoned everyone.
That I ran off and left everyone high and dry,” he once said.
Still, the star explained that his passion for Lange made the hard decision worth it.
“I love this woman in a way I can’t describe,” he wrote in letters in the 90s.
Yet his memories of the relationship took a darker turn in the new millennium, with
Shepard admitting that he had sabotaged Lange with his horrible bouts of drinking and dysfunctional
behaviors, and they had decided to stay together just for the sake of their kids, Hannah Jane
and Samuel Walker.
Lange also got candid about her romance with the Buried Child playwright, saying he was
a great man.
She shared, “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."
In the interview just right before Shepard's death, Jessica also reflected on their relationship,
"I wouldn't call Sammy easygoing and funny, but everybody has their dark side, and he
always does it with a sense of humor," the actress said.
Differences aside, Shepard sang Lange praises, describing her only in the fondest of terms.
He never knew her, ever, to lie about anything – Jessica had this absolute honesty.
He thought it was a direct quality of the Midwest.
One of the great things about her, aside from her natural beauty, which was remarkable,
was her humbleness.
No wonder, Shepard never met anybody like Lange.
In his eyes, she was astounding.
The famous actor was torn between his drive to write and passion for Lange.
That’s why the romance wasn’t all roses for neither Shepard nor Lange.
She was constantly struggling with his addiction and coldness.
Although he was the greatest love of her life, Lange could hardly make this relationship
work.
It seems as if Lange was trying to rescue Shepard from the dark side of his nature.
But the couple struggled to make this complicated relationship work over and over again.
“When we started it, it was never with the intention that we were going to run off, live
together, have a family, do all these…regular things.
It was just this unbelievably passionate love affair.
But then we just couldn’t give it up,” Jessica described the onset of their relationship.
She also confessed that Shepard was especially mysterious at the time.
It seems as if he was always disappearing.
He had this whole thing going on with music and nightlife.
Lange never had any idea what this man was up to.
She was completely wrapped up in starring in the new film.
The situation was so overwhelming that she could barely handle it.
But the worst part about life with Shepard was linked to the couple's constant separations.
Shepard wasn't the kind of man who'd follow a woman around.
Yes, he came to see his family, but he never packed his bags and was there for months,
twiddling with the kids and just being present.
According to Lange, Shepard would've been happy if she never made another movie, if
they could've lived together in the wild, idyllic manner.
But she kept wanting to act.
Those separations became a source of real difficulty for the couple.
Lange once confessed that years of being with Shepard actually made her re-evaluate her
perspective on life.
She revealed, “In recent years, I’ve tried to come to grips with the idea that you can
actually choose to be happy.
You can choose not to let things affect you negatively.
You can actually choose to let things roll off you.”
No doubt, Jessica was in an incredibly complicated relationship (6.03).
But she stayed independent all along.
Reflecting on her past, she opened up, “I’ve never gotten anything from the men I’ve
been with.
They haven’t gotten me any parts.
I’m sure I’d be in the same position now if I had not had anything to do with any of
these men.”
Lange also emphasized the importance of family, describing how being a mother and a grandmother
changed her beyond recognition.
As Lange said, parenting opened her heart and made her a different person.
Every move she now makes is with someone else in mind.
She loves being a mother more than anything else in the world.
What’s more, Lange considers being a grandmother is even more fun than motherhood.
While Lange focused more on her family life, Shepard remained a lone wolf for all these
years.
His life-long friend Johnny Dark reflected on his personality, “He was really a lost
soul, looking for something impossible.
He couldn’t maintain relationships at all.
Even when he was married to Jessica, he bought a place far away to run off to.”
It got even worse when Shepard found out that he was terminally ill.
There was no cure for the disease.
Over the months, he was getting more depressed, more angry, going through all the stages people
go through when they’re dying.
He had been busted for the second time driving drunk.
All of these things were happening at once for him.
His life was literally falling apart.
Dark remembered the last time he saw Shepard.
Although he had a lot of trouble driving, the famous actor came to the friend’s house
by himself.
Dark thought that Shepard shouldn’t have been driving at all – Sam was losing control
of his whole upper body, having trouble controlling the truck.
He traveled with a large oxygen machine because of his breathing difficulties.
The next day, Shepard left his friend’s house.
It was the last time the two saw each other.
Shepard passed away in 2017 due to complications from the illness.
Could we say it’s a miracle Lange and Shepard stayed together for so long?
Given the lone wolf nature of Shepard and the ambitious career plans of Lange, the couple
struggled to find the balance for all these years.
In one of the interviews, Shepard said, “I'm sure when you're looking for someone, you're
looking for some aspect of yourself, even if you don't know it...
What we're searching for is what we lack.
You lack something, and your hope is that it'll be fulfilled by whom you find."
Could that be the real reason why he stayed with Lange – a search for that humbleness
and honesty?
We will never know how that passion could stay with the couple for so long.
But one thing is clear – they had a truly tragic romance that changed their lives forever.