Celebrity List - Insomniacs

Sam Shepard

ActingFort Sheridan, Illinois, USASamuel Shepard Rogers III (November 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017) was an American playwright, actor, director, screenwriter, and author whose career spanned half a century. He wrote 58 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs. He won 10 Obie Awards for writing and directing, the most by any writer or director. Shepard received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for portraying pilot Chuck Yeager in the 1983 film The Right Stuff. He received the PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award as a master American dramatist in 2009. New York magazine described Shepard as "the greatest American playwright of his generation."Shepard's plays are known for their bleak, poetic, surrealist elements, black comedy, and rootless characters living on the outskirts of American society. His style evolved from the absurdism of his early off-off-Broadway work to the realism of later plays like Buried Child and Curse of the Starving Class.

Forest Whitaker

ActingLongview, Texas, USAForest Steven Whitaker (born July 15, 1961) is an American actor, producer, director, and activist. He is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a British Academy Film Award, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.After making his film debut in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), Whitaker went on to earn a reputation for intensive character study work for films, such as Platoon (1986), Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Bird (1988), The Crying Game (1992), Phenomenon (1996), Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), The Great Debaters (2007), The Butler (2013), Arrival (2016), and Respect (2021). He has also appeared in blockbusters, such as Panic Room (2002), Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) as Saw Gerrera, and Black Panther (2018) as Zuri. For his portrayal of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the British historical drama film The Last King of Scotland (2006), Whitaker won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Whitaker made his directorial debut with the television film Strapped (1993), and directed the films Waiting to Exhale (1995), Hope Floats (1998), and First Daughter (2004).Apart from his film career, Whitaker is also known for his humanitarian work and activism. In 2011, he was inducted as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, later receiving a promotion to Special Envoy for Peace and Reconciliation, and serves as the CEO of Whitaker Peace and Development Initiative (WPDI), a non-profit outreach program.

Tom Bower

ActingDenver, Colorado, USARalph Thomas Bower (January 3, 1938 – May 30, 2024) was an American actor who appeared in a wide variety of television and film roles from 1973 to 2023. On television, he played physician Curtis Willard (husband of Mary-Ellen) on The Waltons (1975 - 1978). Bower also appeared in numerous series in guest roles, including Hill Street Blues, The X-Files, The West Wing, and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. In film, he had prominent supporting roles in notable films such as River's Edge (1986), Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), Die Hard 2 (1990), Nixon (1995), Pollock (2000), The Hills Have Eyes (2006), Appaloosa (2008), Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009), The Killer Inside Me (2010), and El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019). Bower was also an award-winning stage actor.