Jean Shepherd
Jean Parker Shepherd Jr. (July 26, 1921 – October 16, 1999) was an American storyteller, radio and TV personality, writer and actor who was often referred to by the nickname Shep.
With a career that spanned decades, Shepherd is best known to modern audiences for the film A Christmas Story (1983), which he narrated and co-scripted, based on his own semi-autobiographical stories.
Early life
Born in 1921 on the south side of Chicago, Illinois, Shepherd briefly lived in East Chicago, Indiana, and was raised in Hammond, Indiana, where he graduated from Hammond High School in 1939. The movie A Christmas Story is loosely based on his days growing up in Hammond's southeast side neighborhood of Hessville. As a youth he worked briefly as a mail carrier in a steel mill and earned his Amateur Radio license (W9QWN) at age 16, sometimes claiming he was even younger. He sporadically attended Indiana University, but never graduated. Shepherd was a lifelong White Sox fan.
During World War II, he served stateside in the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Shepherd then had an extensive career in a variety of media.
