Bennington College
Bennington College is a private liberal arts college in Bennington, Vermont, United States. Founded as a women’s college in 1932,
, and studied acting with
Sanford Meisner
Sanford Meisner (August 31, 1905 – February 2, 1997) was an American actor and acting teacher who developed an approach to acting instruction that is now known as the Meisner technique. While Meisner was exposed to method acting at the Group ...
. She later went on to teach Meisner's program of acting study, the first woman to do so.
Career
Shepherd was a founding member of the Compass Players in the early 1960s, along with
Alan Alda
Alan Alda (; born Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo; January 28, 1936) is an American actor. A six-time Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award winner and a three-time Tony Award nominee, he is best known for playing Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pier ...
and
Alan Arkin
Alan Wolf Arkin (March 26, 1934 – June 29, 2023) was an American actor, filmmaker and musician. In a career spanning seven decades, he received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Tony A ...
.
Shepherd was known for her portrayal of Aunt Tweedy in the film ''
Mystic Pizza
''Mystic Pizza'' is a 1988 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Donald Petrie in his feature directorial debut, and starring Annabeth Gish, Julia Roberts and Lili Taylor. It follows the coming-of-age of three young Portuguese-Am ...
'', Karen's overbearing mother in the film '' Goodfellas'',
Carmela Soprano
Carmela Soprano (''née'' DeAngelis), played by Edie Falco, is a fictional character on the HBO TV series ''The Sopranos''. She is married to Mafia boss Tony Soprano. A young Carmela, portrayed by Lauren DiMario, appears in the 2021 prequel fi ...
HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...
television series ''
The Sopranos
''The Sopranos'' is an American Crime film#Crime drama, crime drama television series created by David Chase. The series follows Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), a New Jersey American Mafia, Mafia boss who suffers from panic attacks. He reluct ...
'', and the assistant school principal in ''
Uncle Buck
''Uncle Buck'' is a 1989 American comedy film written and directed by John Hughes. It stars John Candy and Amy Madigan with Jean Louisa Kelly, Laurie Metcalf, Jay Underwood, Macaulay Culkin, Gaby Hoffmann, Elaine Bromka, and Garrett M. B ...
''. She also played the role of Mrs. Scarlini in the 2000 film ''
Requiem for a Dream
''Requiem for a Dream'' is a 2000 American psychological drama film directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher McDonald, and Marlon Wayans. It is based on the 1978 novel of the same ...
Sopranos
A soprano () is a type of classical singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to A5 in choral music, or to ...
'' co-star
Steve Schirripa
Steven Ralph Schirripa ( ; born September 3, 1957) is an American actor. He is regularly credited as Steven R. Schirripa, including his total of over 300 total appearances in three long running series, playing: Bobby Bacala on ''The Sopranos''; ...
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
police procedural drama ''
Blue Bloods
''Blue Bloods'' is an American police procedural drama (film and television), drama television series that aired on CBS from September 24, 2010, to December 13, 2024, across 14 seasons and 293 episodes. Its main characters were members of the fi ...
''. In 2018, she reprised the role of Lucille Abetemarco in "Trust" the sixth episode of the ninth season of ''Blue Bloods''.
Shepherd was also a theatre director, working in New York and in regional theatre.
Personal life and death
From a marriage to David Shepherd, which lasted from 1957 until their divorce in 1966, she had a son, who died in 2011, and a daughter, artist Kate Shepherd. Her second marriage, to Carroll Calkins, lasted from 1996 until his death in 2006.
Shepherd died from
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a type of progressive lung disease characterized by chronic respiratory symptoms and airflow limitation. GOLD defines COPD as a heterogeneous lung condition characterized by chronic respiratory s ...
and kidney failure at her home in
Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...