Curly Shepard

Curly Shepard is the main antagonist of S.E. Hinton's 1971 novel That Was Then, This is Now, and its 1985 adaptation of the same name. He is Angela and Tim's brother as well as Mark and Bryon's archenemy.

He was portrayed by Matthew Dudley.

History
Curly is first seen bullying Cathy Carlson's younger brother, Howard "M&M" and forcing him to sing the Jingle Bells song for him. However, Mark and Bryon arrive in the nick of time and fight off Curly and his friend and they flee.

Seeing the new couple at the dance, Angela becomes jealous, and incites one of her punk brothers to start a fight. At Cathy’s urging, Bryon walks away. However, when Mark steps in and gets a bottle smashed over his head, Bryon knocks the punk out cold. After they leave, Mark expresses his displeasure that Bryon initially walked away from the fight, and blames Cathy for changing him. Over time, Bryon and Cathy’s relationship grows deeper, and Mark continues to feel threatened. At Charlie’s pool hall, Mark and Bryon shoot pool with two men, and hustle them for money. When the boys leave the bar, the angry men await, and hold them at gunpoint. Charlie comes to their rescue with a sawed-off shotgun, but as the men flee, they shoot Charlie dead.

After Charlie's death, Mark continues to feel isolated and jealous of Cathy. Bryon invites Mark and M&M to spend the evening with him and Cathy, but when Mark punches a stranger in the face for honking his horn at them, Cathy is critical of his behavior, and both Mark and M&M leave.

The next day, Cathy tells Bryon that M&M never came home and they drive around searching for him. Later, Byron invites Mark to come along as he continues to search for M&M. Mark is thrilled to spend time alone with Bryon, and takes a detour to pick up Angela, who tells Bryon that he was the only boy she ever cared about. Mark plans his revenge against Angela, who instigated the fight in which he was struck with the bottle. Mark invites her to go driving with them, and gets her drunk. After she passes out, Mark cuts off her long hair and leaves her on her front porch. In time, Byron asks Mark why his father shot his mother, and Mark claims it happened after his mother admitted he was not Mark’s real father. Mark reveals that he knows where M&M may be hiding, and takes Bryon to an abandoned warehouse. M&M is nowhere to be found, and when Bryon calls the squatter-haven “disgusting,” Mark leaves in anger, accusing him of being judgmental.

Sometime later, Angela’s brothers beat Bryon for cutting off her hair. Mark vows revenge, but Bryon insists the fighting to come to an end. Eventually, Bryon confronts Mark and forces him to move out of their house after realizing that he sold drugs to M&M.