LOS ANGELES — Kris Kristofferson, a Rhodes scholar 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 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 starred alongside Wesley Snipes in ” Blade” from Marvel 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.”
Kristofferson retired from performing and recording in 2021, making only occasional appearances on stage, including a performance with Roseanne Cash at Nelson’s 90th birthday celebration at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles in 2023. The two sang a song written by Kristofferson, and Nelson – one of the great interpreters of his work – recorded the best-known version.
Nelson and Kristofferson would join forces with Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings to create the country supergroup “The Highwaymen” beginning in the mid-1980s.
Kristofferson was a boxer and Golden Gloves 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 in West Point, New York, to pursue songwriting. 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.
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