Kris Kristofferson, a country singer who also had a successful film career, has died at the age of 88.
Kristofferson’s family said he “passed away peacefully” at home on Saturday, which was proof of his death on Sunday night. The note from his wife Lisa, his eight children, and his seven grandkids said, “We’re all so blessed for our time with him.” You have loved him for a long time. When you see a rainbow, know that he is looking down at you.
Country music legend and actor Kris Kristofferson has died pic.twitter.com/oM11QC0PB8
— The Sun (@TheSun) September 30, 2024
Kristofferson’s country songs were praised for their honesty, grit, and literary skill. They often topped the US country charts, and singers like Janis Joplin, Gladys Knight, and Johnny Cash had hits with cover versions of his songs. In the mid-1970s, he worked with Martin Scorsese, Sam Peckinpah, and others. For his role opposite Barbra Streisand in the 1976 version of A Star is Born, he won a Golden Globe.
Streisand wrote on Instagram that her co-star was a “special” and “charming” talent to help her remember him. As she wrote, “it was a joy to see him get the praise and love he so richly deserved.”
Kristofferson and Dolly Parton sang songs together, like “From Here to the Moon and Back.” Parton wrote, “What a great loss.” Wow, what a great author. He is such a great actress. What a wonderful friend you are. Dolly, I love you always.
Repa McEntire, a country singer, wrote, “What a gentleman, a kind soul, and a lover of words.” I’m so glad I met him and spent time with him. One of my favorite people.
Kris Kristofferson died at his home in Maui on Saturday, family spokeswoman Ebie McFarland said in an email. He was 88. https://t.co/txdZ2hs9FI
— WTHR.com (@WTHRcom) September 29, 2024
Kristofferson was born in Texas in 1936 and went to high school in California. He wanted to be a novelist at first and later studied writing at Pomona College in southern California and as a Rhodes scholar at the University of Oxford. Getting interested in music from the early days of rock ‘n’ roll, he started out as Kris Carson in the UK, but the songs he made were never released.
During his time in the US Army, he kept playing music and learned how to fly helicopters. He used this skill in the oil business and the National Guard after he left the army in 1965, which made his military family angry. Afterward, he said, “I was proud to be the best worker or the guy who could dig dikes the fastest.” “I wanted to do the hard things because of something inside me…” I wanted to be a writer, so I thought I needed to get out and live.
Moved to Nashville, Tennessee, which is known for its country music scene. There, he worked as a bartender and a cleaner at Columbia Recording Studios. He wrote songs for country singers like Ray Stevens, Faron Young, and Billy Walker in the late 1960s, but his solo career didn’t do well.
He made progress when he landed a National Guard helicopter at Johnny Cash’s house and gave him a tape of his songs. He later said that what he did was “kind of an invasion of privacy that I wouldn’t recommend.” The recording Cash made of Kristofferson’s song “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” went to the top of the country charts in 1970 and won Song of the Year at the Country Music Association awards. Cash liked the song.
In that year, Kristofferson made the first of 18 studio records that he would put out over the course of his career. After she died in 1970, his song “Me and Bobby McGee” became a No. 1 hit. He loved Janis Joplin for a short time. In the same year, Kristofferson’s “Help Me Make It Through the Night” became a hit for Sammi Smith. Elvis Presley, Gladys Knight, Mariah Carey, and other artists later performed it.
By the time Kristofferson’s fourth record, Jesus Was a Capricorn, hit the top of the country charts in 1972, he was already an accomplished actor, having made his debut in Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie. He also played the criminal Billy the Kid in Sam Peckinpah’s 1973 movie Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. He starred opposite Ellen Burstyn in Martin Scorsese’s 1974 movie Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, and he co-starred with Burt Reynolds in the 1977 sports comedy-drama Semi-Tough. A Star Is Born made him a big star in Hollywood, but Heaven’s Gate (1980), which was a huge disappointment at the box office, hurt his reputation.
The legendary Kris Kristofferson has died.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) September 29, 2024
He was 88. pic.twitter.com/VC1ZOXyDcu
A hit record of Kristofferson covers was made by Willie Nelson in 1979. In 1982, the two worked with Dolly Parton and Brenda Lee on a collection of songs from the mid-1960s. There was another band called the Highwaymen, which was made up of Kristofferson, Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Waylon Jennings in 1985. Kristofferson went back to the top of the country charts with their first record, Highwayman. Jimmy Webb wrote the song “Highwayman.”
He spoke out against US President Ronald Reagan and US foreign policy in Central America in the 1980s, when the US paid for fighting left-wing groups in El Salvador and Nicaragua. Kristofferson’s record Repossessed from 1986 talked about the wars.
His acting career has been steady, but in 1996, he got a big boost when he played the bad guy sheriff Charlie Wade in John Sayles’s well-reviewed neo-western Lone Star, which also starred Chris Cooper and Matthew McConaughey. It got him big parts, like playing vampire hunter Abraham Whistler in three Blade movies with Wesley Snipes.
Read more: Marjorie Nell McFarland’s Obituary: Celebrating a Life Well-Lived
Kristofferson stopped working in 2021. His last movie part was in Ethan Hawke’s 2018 drama Blaze, and his most recent album was The Cedar Creek Sessions (2016).
He got married three times. The first time was in 1960 to Fran Beer. In 1973, he married singer Rita Coolidge. That same year, their duet album Full Moon became one of Kristofferson’s biggest hits, making it into the Top 30 of the pop lists. In 1980, they got a divorce. Lisa Meyers, his third wife, whom he married in 1983 and had five children with, is his only living child. He also had three children from his first two marriages.
