Sam Shepard wears an unidentified watch

Sam Shepard plays Thomas Callahan in The Pelican Brief, a law professor at Tulane who is having an affair with his student Darby Shaw and becomes an early casualty of the conspiracy she uncovers. Alan J. Pakula directed this 1993 thriller, adapted from John Grisham's novel, with Julia Roberts as Darby and Denzel Washington as the journalist who helps her survive. Shepard's Callahan is charming and careless, a man who drinks too much and encourages Darby's research into why two Supreme Court justices were murdered, not realizing how dangerous that research will become. His death early in the film sets the plot in motion and leaves Darby alone with information that powerful people want buried. Shepard brings warmth to what could have been a purely functional role, making Callahan's death matter to the audience as much as it matters to Darby. His watch has not been identified.