Kris Kristofferson: Country superstar and Hollywood A-lister dies aged 88

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kris Kristofferson, a Rhodes scholar with a deft writing style and rugged charisma who became a country music superstar and a high-profile Hollywood actor, has died.

Kristofferson died Saturday at his home in Maui, Hawaii, family spokeswoman Ebie McFarland said in an email. He was 88.

McFarland said Kristofferson died peacefully surrounded by his family. No reason was given.

Starting in the late 1960s, the Brownsville, Texas native wrote country and rock 'n' roll standards such 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 became known primarily through being sung by others, be it Ray Price singing “For the Good Times” or Janis Joplin singing “Me and Bobby McGee” blared.

He played opposite Ellen Burstyn in Martin Scorsese's 1974 film “Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore,” starred opposite Barbra Streisand in 1976's “A Star Is Born,” and starred opposite Wesley Snipes in Marvel's “Blade” in 1998.

Kristofferson, who could recite William Blake by heart, wove intricate folk lyrics about loneliness and tender romance into popular country music. With his long hair and bell-bottoms and counterculture songs influenced by Bob Dylan, he represented a new generation of country songwriters alongside colleagues like Willie Nelson. John Prine and Tom T. Hall.

“There is no better songwriter than Kris Kristofferson,” Nelson said at a BMI awards ceremony for Kristofferson in 2009. “Everything he writes is a standard, and we all have to live with that.”

Kristofferson retired from performances and recordings in 2021 and only occasionally appears on stage as a guest, including an appearance with Cash's daughter Rosanne Nelson's 90th birthday party at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles in 2023. The two sang “Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again),” a song that was a hit for Kristofferson and a longtime live performer for Nelson, another great interpreter of his work. was a classic.

Nelson and Kristofferson joined forces with Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings to form the country supergroup The Highwaymen in the mid-1980s.

Kristofferson was a Golden Gloves boxer, rugby star and football player in college; received a master's degree in English from Merton College, University of Oxford, England; and flew helicopters as a captain in the U.S. Army, but turned down a teaching position 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 Records' Music Row studio in 1966 when Dylan recorded tracks for the groundbreaking double album Blonde on Blonde.

At times, the legend of Kristofferson was larger than real life. Cash liked to tell a mostly exaggerated story about how Kristofferson landed a helicopter on Cash's lawn, beer in hand, to give him a cassette of “Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down.” Over the years, Kristofferson has said in interviews, with all due respect to Cash, that although he landed at Cash's house in a helicopter, the Man in Black wasn't even home at the time, the demo tape was a song that no one had really cut it yet, and He certainly couldn't fly a helicopter with a beer.

In an interview with The Associated Press in 2006, he said that without Cash he might not have had a career.

“Shaking his hand backstage at the Grand Ole Opry when I was still in the Army was the moment I decided to come back,” Kristofferson said. “It was electric. He kind of took me under his wing before cutting one of my songs. He recorded my first record, which was record of the year. He brought me on stage for the first time.”

One of his most recorded songs, “Me and Bobby McGee,” was written at the recommendation of Monument Records founder Fred Foster. Foster had a song title in mind called “Me and Bobby McKee,” named after a secretary in his building. Kristofferson said in an interview in Performing Songwriter magazine that after watching the Frederico Fellini film “La Strada,” he was inspired to write the lyrics about a man and a woman traveling together.

Joplin, who had a close relationship with Kristofferson, changed the lyrics to make Bobby McGee a man and cut her version just days before she died of a drug overdose in 1970. The recording became a posthumous No. 1 hit for Joplin.

Hits Kristofferson recorded include “Watch Closely Now,” “Desperados Waiting for a Train,” “A Song I'd Like to Sing” and “Jesus Was a Capricorn.”

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.

Forming the Highwaymen with Nelson, Cash and Jennings was another crucial point in his career as an artist.

“I think what made me different from the other guys was that I went in as a fan of all of them,” Kristofferson told the AP in 2005. “I had respect for them when I was in the army. When I went to Nashville, they were my big heroes because they were people who took music seriously. To not only be welcomed by them, but to be friends with them and work alongside them, was just a little surreal. It was like seeing his face on Mount Rushmore.”

The group only released three albums between 1985 and 1995. Jennings died in 2002 and Cash died a year later. Kristofferson said in 2005 that there had been talks about reforming the group with other artists such as George Jones or Hank Williams Jr., but Kristofferson said it wouldn't have been the same.

“Looking back now, I know I hear Willie saying it was the best time of his life,” Kristofferson said in 2005. “I wish I was more aware of how short that time would be.” It lasted several years, but it was still like the blink of an eye. I wish I had enjoyed every moment.”

Of the four, only Nelson is still alive.

Kristofferson's sharp-tongued political lyrics sometimes dented his popularity, particularly in the late 1980s. His 1989 album “Third World Warrior” focused on Central America and the impact of US politics there, but critics and fans were not enthusiastic about the overtly political songs.

During an interview with the AP in 1995, he said he remembered a woman complaining about one of the songs about killing babies in the name of freedom.

“And I said, 'Well, what made you mad – the fact that I said it or the fact that we're doing it?' To me, they were angry at me for telling them what was going on.”

As the son of an Air Force general, he enlisted in the army in the 1960s because it was expected of him.

“I was in ROTC in college and it was just a given in my family that I would serve,” he said in a 2006 AP interview. “Because of my background and the generation I grew up in, honor and service to your country just came naturally. So when people later questioned some of the things that were done in his name, it was particularly painful.”

Hollywood may have saved his music career. His film and television appearances made him known even when he couldn't afford to tour with a full band.

Kristofferson's first role was in Dennis Hopper's “The Last Movie” in 1971.

He had a penchant for westerns and used his gravelly voice to play attractive, stoic leading men. He was Burstyn's rugged, handsome lover in “Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore” and a tragic rock star in a rocky relationship with Streisand in “A Star Is Born,” a role Bradley Cooper reprized in the 2018 remake.

He was the young titular criminal in director Sam Peckinpah's 1973 “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid,” a truck driver in the same director's 1978 “Convoy,” and a corrupt sheriff in director John Sayles' “Lone Star.” 1996. He also starred in one of Hollywood's biggest financial flops, “Heaven's Gate,” a 1980 western that went tens of millions of dollars over budget.

And in a rare appearance in a superhero film, he played the mentor of Snipes' vampire hunter in Blade.

In a 2006 AP interview, he described how he got his first acting gigs while performing in Los Angeles.

“Coincidentally, my first professional gig was at the Troubadour in LA opening for Linda Rondstadt,” Kristofferson said. “Robert Hilburn (Los Angeles Times music critic) wrote a fantastic review and the concert was postponed for a week,” Kristofferson said. “A lot of people came from the film industry and I started getting film offers without having any experience. Of course, I had no performance experience either.”

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Hall reported from Nashville. AP National Writer Hillel Italie contributed to this report.

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This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Rosanne Cash.