Los Angeles
PA
—
Kris Kristofferson, a Rhodes student with a deft writing style and raw charisma who became a country music superstar and a leading actor in Hollywood, has died.
Kristofferson died Saturday at his home in Maui, Hawaii, family spokeswoman Ebie McFarland said in an email. He was 88 years old.
McFarland said Kristofferson died peacefully, surrounded by family. No cause was given.
Beginning in the late 1960s, the Brownsville, Texas, native wrote such classic standards as “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down,” “Help Me Make it Through the Night,” “For the Good Times” and “Me and Bobby McGee.” Kristofferson was a singer himself, but many of his songs were best known for being performed by others, whether it was Ray Price singing “For the Good Times” or Janis Joplin singing “Me and Bobby McGee.”
He also starred alongside Ellen Burstyn in director Martin Scorsese’s 1974 film “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” alongside Barbra Streisand in “A Star Is Born” in 1976, and co-starred with Wesley Snipes in Marvel’s “Blade” in 1998.
Kristofferson, who could recite William Blake from memory, weaved intricate folk music lyrics about loneliness and tender romance into popular country music. With his long hair, bell bottom pants and countercultural songs influenced by Bob Dylan, he represented a new generation of country songwriters alongside his peers such as Willie Nelson, John Prine and Tom T. Hall .
“There is no better songwriter alive than Kris Kristofferson,” Nelson said at a November 2009 Kristofferson awards ceremony hosted by BMI. “Everything he writes is a standard and we’re all going to have to live with that.”
As an actor, he starred opposite Barbara Streisand and Ellen Burstyn, but also had a penchant for shootout westerns and cowboy dramas.
He was a Golden Gloves boxer and football player in college, earned a master’s degree in English from Merton College at the University of Oxford in England, and turned down an appointment to teach at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point , New York, to continue his songwriting studies. in Nashville. Hoping to break into the industry, he worked as a part-time janitor at Columbia Records’ Music Row studio in 1966 when Dylan recorded tracks for the seminal double album “Blonde on Blonde.”
Sometimes Kristofferson’s legend was bigger than reality. Cash liked to tell a rather exaggerated story about how Kristofferson, a former U.S. Army pilot, landed a helicopter on Cash’s lawn to give him a tape of “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” with a beer. the hand. Over the years of interviews, Kristofferson has stated with all respect to Cash, even though he landed a helicopter at Cash’s house, that Man in Black wasn’t even at his house at the time, that the demo was a song that no one had ever actually cut and he certainly couldn’t fly a helicopter with a beer.
In a 2006 interview with the Associated Press, he said he might not have had a career without Cash.
“Shaking his hand while I was still backstage at Army at the Grand Ole Opry, that’s the moment I decided to come back,” Kristofferson said. “It was electric. He kind of took me under his wing before he cut one of my songs. He recorded my first record which was record of the year. He put me on stage the first time.
One of his most recorded songs, “Me and Bobby McGee,” was written based on a recommendation from Monument Records founder Fred Foster. Foster had in mind the title of a song called “Me and Bobby McKee,” named after a secretary in his building. Kristofferson said in an interview with “Performing Songwriter” magazine that he was inspired to write the lyrics about a man and a woman on the road together after watching the Frederico Fellini film, “La Strada.”
Joplin, who had a close relationship with Kristofferson, changed the lyrics to make Bobby McGee a man and cut his version just days before his death in 1970 from a drug overdose. The recording became a posthumous #1 hit for Joplin.
Hits recorded by Kristofferson include “Why Me”, “Loving Him Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do)”, “Look Closely Now”, “Desperados Waiting for a Train”, “A Song I Wish I Singed ” and “Jesus was a Capricorn”.
In 1973, he married fellow songwriter Rita Coolidge and together they had a successful duo career that earned them two Grammy Awards. They divorced in 1980.
He retired from performing and recording in 2021, making only occasional appearances on stage.
