LOS ANGELES (AP) ā Kris Kristofferson, a Rhodes scholar with a deft writing style and rough charisma who became a country music superstar and an A-list Hollywood actor, has died.
died at his home on Maui, Hawaii on Saturday, family spokeswoman Ebie McFarland said in an email. He was 88.
McFarland said Kristofferson died peacefully, surrounded by his family. No cause was given.
Starting in the late 1960s, the Brownsville, Texas native wrote such country and rock ānā roll standards as āSunday Morninā Cominā Down,ā āHelp Me Make it Through the Night,ā āFor the Good Timesā and āMe and Bobby McGee,ā which became his best-known song as a posthumous hit for Janis Joplin.
He starred opposite in director Martin Scorseseās 1974 film āAlice Doesnāt Live Here Anymore,ā starred opposite Barbra Streisand in the 1976 āA Star Is Born,ā and acted alongside Wesley Snipes in Marvelās āBladeā in 1998.
Kristofferson, who could recite the poems of William Blake from memory, wove folk music lyrics about loneliness and tender romance into popular country music. He represented a new breed of country songwriters along with such peers as Willie Nelson, and Tom T. Hall.
āThereās no better songwriter alive than Kris Kristofferson,ā Nelson said at a 2009 BMI award ceremony for Kristofferson.
from performing and recording in 2021, making only occasional guest appearances on stage.
Nelson and Kristofferson would join forces with Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings to create the country supergroup āThe Highwaymenā starting in the mid-1980s.
Kristofferson was a Golden Gloves boxer, rugby star and football player in college; received a masterās degree in English from the University of Oxford; and flew helicopters as a captain in the U.S. Army but turned down an appointment to teach at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, to pursue songwriting in Nashville. Hoping to break into the industry, he worked as a part-time janitor at Columbia Recordsā Music Row studio in 1966 when Dylan recorded tracks for the seminal āBlonde on Blondeā double album.
At times, the legend of Kristofferson was larger than real life. Cash liked to tell a mostly exaggerated story of how Kristofferson landed a helicopter on Cashās lawn to give him a tape of āSunday Morninā Cominā Downā with a beer in one hand. Over the years in interviews, Kristofferson said with all respect to Cash, the Man in Black wasnāt even home at the time, the demo tape was a song that no one ever actually cut and he certainly couldnāt fly a helicopter holding a beer.
He later said he might not have had a career without Cash.
āHe kind of took me under his wing before he cut any of my songs,ā Kristofferson said in a 2006 interview with The Associated Press. āHe cut my first record that was record of the year. He put me on stage the first time.ā
One of his most recorded songs, āMe and Bobby McGee,ā was written based on a recommendation from Monument Records founder Fred Foster. Foster had a song title in his head called āMe and Bobby McKee,ā named after a female secretary in his building. Kristofferson said in an interview in the magazine, āPerforming Songwriter,ā that he was inspired to write the lyrics about a man and woman on the road together after watching the Frederico Fellini film, āLa Strada.ā
In 1973, he married fellow songwriter Rita Coolidge and together they had a successful duet career that earned them two Grammy awards. They divorced in 1980.
The formation of the Highwaymen, with Nelson, Cash and Jennings, was another pivotal point in his career as a performer. He told the AP in 2005 it was āunrealā to be a peer with men whoād been his heroes.
āIt was like seeing your face on Mount Rushmore,ā he said.
The group put out just three albums between 1985 and 1995. Jennings died in 2002 and Cash died a year later. Among the four, only Nelson is now alive.
His first film role was in Dennis Hopperās āThe Last Movie,ā in 1971.
Along with his leading-man roles, he had a fondness for Westerns.
He was the young title outlaw in director Sam Peckinpah's 1973 āPat Garrett and Billy the Kid,ā a truck driver for the same director in 1978's āConvoyā and a corrupt sheriff in director John Sayles' 1996 āLone Star.ā
He told the AP in 2006 how he got his first acting gigs when he performed in Los Angeles.
āIt just happened that my first professional gig was at the Troubadour in L.A. opening for Linda Rondstadt,ā Kristofferson said. āThere were a bunch of movie people coming in there, and I started getting film offers with no experience. Of course, I had no experience performing either.ā
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Hall reported from Nashville. AP National Writer Hillel Italie contributed to this report.
Andrew Dalton And Kristin M. Hall, The Associated Press
