Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard (born November 5, 1943, Fort Sheridan, United States; died 2017), was an American playwright and actor. Shepard's honours include Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Guggenheim Fellowship and Obie Award.
Sam Shepard’s zodiac sign was Scorpio, Chinese zodiac was Water Goat, with Life Path 6 in numerology.
Scorpio, Chinese zodiac was 
Water Goat, with 
Life Path 6 in numerology.Your match with Sam
Sam Shepard’s AsterNym identity
The Radiant Guardian
Fire represents warmth, visibility and momentum. Fire-led charts are associated with enthusiasm, expression and the ability to encourage other people. Life Path 6 represents care: home, responsibility, beauty and the instinct to support the people nearby.
Fire Day Master (BaZi) × fixed Sun × Life Path 6, on the emotional plane.
How common is the name Sam in the U.S.?
#647
US rank in 2025
~128,810
Americans share it since 1880
1918
its peak year
The SSA recorded 1,322 American boys and 15 girls named Sam in 1943: 153rd among boys and 2,432nd among girls for the year.
US Social Security Administration public records
What Sam’s name adds up to
Worked from the name as published, letter by letter.
5
Expression · versatility
7
Soul Urge · understanding
7
Personality · composed, private
The name opens on S (1) and closes on M (4). The value it repeats most is 1, which numerology reads as drive.
Pythagorean letter values · A=1 to I=9, then J=1 again
Sam’s lucky numbers, colours and stones
Traditional correspondences, calculated not chosen.
Lucky numbers
6 · 2 · 7
Lucky colours
Blue & Black
Lucky day
Tuesday
Direction
↑ North
Season
winter
Stones
Topaz, Red Coral, Aquamarine
Flower constellation
🌼 Chrysanthemum · 🌺 Red Dahlia · 🪷 Lotus
Gold · Crimson · Soft pink
Eight Mansions · Kua number
Kua 2, trigram Kun 坤, West group. Best direction Northeast, worst East.
A different tradition from the Direction above, and a different question: feng shui reads it from the solar year 1943, which turns at Li Chun rather than at New Year, and from sex, which Wikidata records as male. Work out your own →
The record
What sets Sam apart
The Guggenheim Fellowship came in 1968, when Sam Shepard was 25.
Sam Shepard was taught at Mt. San Antonio College and Eugene O'Neill Theater Center.
Sam Shepard was 17 when the work began in 1960.
Cause of death is recorded as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
The family line: born to Jane Elaine Schook and married O-Lan Jones.
Wikipedia files Sam Shepard under Mt. San Antonio College alumni, The Holy Modal Rounders members and People from Fort Sheridan, Illinois.
Vivien Leigh (1913) and Art Garfunkel (1941) share the birthday in another year, so the sun sits where it sits here.
- Educated at
- Mt. San Antonio College, Eugene O'Neill Theater Center and Duarte High School
- Awards
- Pulitzer Prize for Drama (1979) and Guggenheim Fellowship (1968)
- Nominated for
- Tony Award for Best Play and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
- Working from
- 1960
- Cause of death
- amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
- Citizenship
- United States
- Languages
- English
- Wikipedia editions
- 57
What the chart says
Sam, according to the stars
Core essence
Sam does not do surface. The core of Sam is intensity, the kind that wants the real story and can tell when it is not getting it. They love completely or not at all, keep their own counsel, and have a private loyalty that runs deeper than anyone outside it will ever know. Trust from Sam is earned slowly and never given lightly.
The vibe
Underneath, Sam needs air. The Moon in Aquarius feels things at a slight distance, thinks them over, and comes back with an answer that is kinder than the reaction would have been. What Sam needs to feel safe is space, friendship first, and to be accepted as exactly the odd shape they are. Then they are the most loyal person you know.
How Sam wants to be loved
Sam wants to be loved attentively. Venus in Virgo shows love through service, the fixed thing, the remembered appointment, and wants to be loved the same way: notice what they did. Big words matter less than the follow-through. Be reliable with Sam and they will quietly make your whole life run better.
How Sam creates
How Sam makes things happen: they hold the flame steady. A Yin Fire day master is the candle, the lamp, the light that is close and personal rather than blazing. Sam creates intimacy, one room, one conversation, one person made to feel seen. Moody when the fuel runs low, magnetic when it does not.
Instinct
Instinct: Sam is creative and kind, a Goat year, and their gut reaction is to make it beautiful. Artistic, gentle, easily moved, and the friend everyone confides in. The Water year softens it: intuitive, adaptable, feeling their way through people.
Purpose
Purpose: Life Path 6 is the nurturer. Sam is here to care, to make a home wherever they are, to be the person others come to. Responsible, warm, a little too willing to carry everyone, and learning to let themselves be looked after.
Triggers
Triggers: being bored, and being talked over. Mars in Gemini fights with words and wins, then forgets it happened. Sam scatters energy across three projects at once and somehow finishes two. The trick is choosing the argument worth having.
Computed from Sam's birth date. Working below.
Where Sam sits
Six lines
Sam’s dot comes from the chart; yours is where you put it.
You may run on a few close bonds rather than a crowd. Depth is your default.
You likely think things through before you act. Haste rarely feels safe.
You likely share some feelings openly and keep others to yourself.
You may need space before addressing conflict. Cooling off comes first.
You likely balance practical steps with room to imagine further.
You likely warm up at a pace that depends on the person and moment.
Tap each line where you sit.
All twelve of yours, from your birth date →✦ A real star from their birth night
Dedicate a star to Sam Shepard
Three stars chosen from the real sky above Fort Sheridan on the night they were born. Choose the story that connects you.
A 9 p.m. reference sky, not the birth minute. Dedications are commemorative and confer no ownership of stars.
The sky over Fort Sheridan that night
Computed for 42.21°N, 9 p.m. local sky.
Scheat stood nearest the zenith over Fort Sheridan at 9 p.m. that evening, 75.5° above the horizon in Pegasus.
Vega was the brightest thing up that night, one of 92 catalog stars above the horizon.
Fort Sheridan sits at 42.2°N, low enough that no headline star is circumpolar: everything bright rises and sets there.
Nothing below −47.8° declination clears the horizon at this latitude, so Canopus, Rigil Kentaurus, Achernar, Hadar, Acrux, Mimosa and Toliman were never visible from Fort Sheridan on any night.
The Moon, 61% lit at first quarter, was still up; the Sun sat 37° below the horizon.
The name and the places
- Born in
- Fort Sheridan, United States
The death is recorded at Midway, Woodford County in 2017.
No birth time is on record, so no astrocartography map can be drawn for Sam Shepard: the lines move about fifteen degrees of longitude an hour. Shared Places can still draw yours.
How unusual Sam's chart is
Chart pattern score
31 / 100 · Quietly distinctive
A bowl chart · Mars retrograde
An AsterNym index built from stelliums, yods, grand crosses and chart shape. It is not a population percentile, and a high score is not a better chart. Without a birth time the houses are left out of it.
Score your own chart →Sam Shepard in 15 seconds
Scorpio Sun
Scorpio SunDeep water, no shallow end.
Sam Shepard's Sun was in Scorpio for the whole of November 5, 1943, so no birth time is needed to settle it.
What Scorpio means →Water Goat
Water GoatNeeds beauty like air.
Sam Shepard was born on November 5, 1943, which falls in a Water Goat year of the Chinese calendar.
What the Goat means →Life Path 6
Life Path 6Responsible before asked.
Sam Shepard's birth date, November 5, 1943, reduces to Life Path 6 under the numerology method AsterNym uses.
What Life Path 6 means →What stands out in Sam’s chart
- The tightest major aspect in Sam Shepard's date-only chart is Venus square Saturn, with an orb of under 1°.
- Three planets, Mars, Saturn and Uranus, sit together in Gemini, which astrologers call a stellium.
- Five of the ten planets fall in Fixed signs, making Fixed the strongest modality in this chart.
- Sam Shepard combines a Fire Day Master in BaZi with a fixed Sun and a Life Path on the emotional plane, the combination AsterNym calls The Radiant Guardian.
Sam’s birth chart
Reference chart · birth time unknown
Positions are checked across the whole date. The Moon ranges from 12° to 26° Aquarius depending on the hour.
No birth time, so the houses are a solar chart: the Sun’s sign counts as house 1.
Placements
Tap one to light it on the wheel.
The working: aspects, Chiron and the asteroids, dominant planets and configurationsshow
Aspects across every possible birth time
stableMercurysquarePluto0.0° to 1.5° orb
Sam’s mind grinds against their depths. The friction is lifelong. Worked with, it builds real strength.
stableVenussquareSaturn0.0° to 0.7° orb
Sam’s affections grind against their discipline. The angle that irritates, and the one that teaches.
stableUranussextilePluto0.9° to 1.0° orb
Sam’s need for freedom opens doors for their depths. Nothing happens until someone makes the first move.
stableJupitersextileSaturn1.1° to 1.2° orb
stableSunconjunctionMercury2.6° to 3.3° orb
stableMarssextileJupiter3.0° to 3.2° orb
stableSunsquarePluto3.2° to 4.2° orb
stableVenussquareMars4.0° to 5.0° orb
stableMarsconjunctionSaturn4.2° to 4.3° orb
stableUranustrineNeptune4.5° to 4.6° orb
stableVenusconjunctionNeptune6.6° to 7.5° orb
possibleMoonoppositionJupiterorb from 0.0° to 12.0° depending on birth time
Chart signature
Elements
- Fire2 of 10
- Earth1 of 10
- Air5 of 10
- Water2 of 10
Modalities
- Cardinal1 of 10
- Fixed5 of 10
- Mutable4 of 10
Counted across the ten planets by sign: Air leads this chart.
Sam’s Chiron, Ceres, Eros, Hygiea and Lilith
What astrologers make of these five, at noon values.
⚷ ChironVirgo 12°59′ (moves 0.10° over the day)
centaur (2060) · the wound and what is learnt from it
⚳ CeresCancer 8°21′ (moves 0.01° over the day)
dwarf planet (1) · how a person nurtures and wants to be nurtured
♡ ErosScorpio 25°25′ (moves 0.69° over the day)
near-Earth asteroid (433) · what draws them and how they desire
⚕ HygieaLibra 10°04′ (moves 0.38° over the day)
main-belt asteroid (10) · health, routine and what keeps them well
⚸ Black Moon LilithLeo 18°23′ (moves 0.11° over the day)
mean lunar apogee · the part that refuses to be tamed
Aspects to the asteroids and Lilith
- Chiron sextile Sun 0.6°
- Eros square Jupiter 0.6°
- Eros sextile Venus 0.8°
- Ceres trine Mercury 1.1°
- Hygiea sextile Pluto 1.3°
- Hygiea trine Uranus 2.3°
Sam’s dominant planets
1. ♇ Pluto8 pts
rules the Sun sign, Scorpio; disposes Sun, Mercury; 3 major aspects
2. ☿ Mercury6 pts
disposes Venus, Mars, Saturn, Uranus; 2 major aspects
3. ♂ Mars4.5 pts
traditionally rules the Sun sign, Scorpio; 3 major aspects
Configurations in Sam’s chart
No stellium, grand trine, T-square, grand cross, yod or kite — the common case.
Minor aspects
semi-sextile, semi-square, quintile, sesquiquadrate, biquintile, quincunx.
- Sun semi-square Venus 1.2°
- Sun sesquiquadrate Saturn 1.4°
- Venus semi-sextile Jupiter 1.4°
- Mercury sesquiquadrate Saturn 1.5°
- Mercury quincunx Uranus 1.7°
- Mercury semi-square Venus 1.8°
More people like Sam
Other screenwriters
- David Giler1943
- Richard Ford1944
- Martin Scorsese1942
- Tim Rice1944
- Barry B. Longyear1942
- David Gerrold1944
Born in United States
- James Alan McPhersonAmerican short story writer and essayist
- Marilynne RobinsonAmerican novelist and essayist (born 1943)
- Louis E. BrusAmerican chemist
- Barrie M. OsborneAmerican film producer
- James LevineAmerican conductor and pianist
- Wallace ShawnAmerican actor
More charts like Sam’s
Fellow Scorpio suns
- Lily AldridgeAmerican model
- Roseanne BarrAmerican actress and comedian (born 1952)
- Karamo BrownAmerican television host, reality television personality, and activist
Born in Goat years
- Brandy NorwoodAmerican singer, songwriter and actress
- Peter ThielGerman-American entrepreneur and venture capitalist
- Lauren GrahamAmerican actress, producer and novelist
Also born on November 5
- Vivien Leigh1913
- Art Garfunkel1941
- Eliud Kipchoge1984
- Kris Jenner1955
- AuronPlay1988
- Ryan Adams1974
Fellow Yin Fire day masters
- Ermin MahmićBosnia and Herzegovina association football player (born 2005)
- Gilberto MoraMexican footballer (born 2008)
- Alvin KamaraAmerican football player
Other Scorpio Goat charts
- Zeno DebastBelgian association football player (born 2003)
- Petar SučićCroatian footballer (born 2003)
- Cairo SantosAmerican football player from Brazil
- Josh Conerly Jr.American football player (born 2003)
Other Radiant Guardians
- Danny AielloAmerican actor
- Murray HamiltonAmerican actor
- Danny LloydAmerican former actor (born 1972)
- Graham ChapmanEnglish actor, comedian and writer
Famous people with Life Path 6
- Jeff PrucherAmerican author
- Jack WilliamsonAmerican science fiction writer
- Nnedi OkoraforNigerian-American writer of fantasy, science fiction, and comics (born 1974)
From the journal: Chinese zodiac hours and your birth hour animal · Astrology vs astronomy: when and why they separated
Sam’s cards
Computed from November 5, 1943. Tap to flip.
Birth tarot card
The LoversAsterNym identity card
The Radiant GuardianWestern zodiac
ScorpioChinese zodiac
Goat 未Life Path
6 · Guardian♂ Ruled by Mars
Iron Fe
The working: BaZi pillarsshow
BaZi pillars
Day Master: yin Fire.
Year
癸
yin Water
未
Goat
Earth
roots & early life
Month
壬
yang Water
戌
Dog
Earth
work & drive
Day
day master
丁
yin Fire
卯
Rabbit
Wood
you & partnership
Where this comes from, and how it is worked out
Sam’s birth date and birthplace come from Wikidata Q294583 (CC0), as do the occupations, works and awards above. With no documented birth time this chart is rated X on the Rodden scale, the astrological convention for how well evidenced a birth time is. The banner above lists what that leaves out. Entries are matched to Wikidata by entity id rather than by name, kept at day precision, and dropped where sources disagree on the date.
Tropical zodiac, whole-sign houses, modern rulers. Aspects on the western_v1 orb policy; minor ones at 1.5° to 2.5°, skipped where a major already holds. Minor bodies from JPL Horizons heliocentric vectors, Lilith as mean apogee. Dominance is an AsterNym score — rulerships, dispositors, aspect count — so other methods can name a different leader.
Portrait by Soerfm, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
The same Sam Shepard at Wikipedia, IMDb and MusicBrainz.
Roster last reviewed September 10, 2026. The full method: how it works.
Traditional interpretations, not facts or predictions, and not endorsed by Sam Shepard.
Quick answers about Sam Shepard’s chart
- What zodiac sign was Sam Shepard?
- Sam Shepard was a Scorpio: born November 5, 1943, which puts the Sun in Scorpio for the whole of that day.
- What was Sam Shepard's Chinese zodiac animal?
- The Goat, with the Water element, from the Chinese lunar year of the November 5, 1943 birth.
- What was Sam Shepard's Life Path number?
- Life Path 6, calculated in numerology.
- What was Sam Shepard's Chiron sign?
- Chiron in Virgo at 12°. Position from JPL Horizons.
- Where was Sam Shepard's Black Moon Lilith?
- Mean Black Moon Lilith in Leo at 18°. This is the mean lunar apogee; the osculating Lilith some tables use can sit up to 30° away.
- What was Sam Shepard's dominant planet?
- Pluto, on AsterNym's dominance score (8 points: rules the Sun sign, Scorpio; disposes Sun, Mercury; 3 major aspects). Mercury is second and Mars third. Other sites weight rulerships and aspects differently and can name a different leader.
