Kris Kristofferson, singer-songwriter and actor, dies at 88

AP Entertainment Writers

LOS ANGELES (AP) — 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.

Kristofferson 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 ‘n’ roll standards as “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down,” “Help Me Make it Through the Night,” “For the Good Times” and “Me and Bobby McGee,” which became his best-known song as a posthumous hit for Janis Joplin.

He starred opposite Ellen Burstyn in director Martin Scorsese’s 1974 film “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” starred opposite Barbra Streisand in the 1976 “A Star Is Born,” and acted alongside Wesley Snipes in Marvel’s “Blade” 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, John Prine and Tom T. Hall.

“There’s no better songwriter alive than Kris Kristofferson,” Nelson said at a 2009 BMI award ceremony for Kristofferson.

Kristofferson retired 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 “The Highwaymen” starting 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 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 Records’ Music Row studio in 1966 when Dylan recorded tracks for the seminal “Blonde on Blonde” 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 Cash’s lawn to give him a tape of “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” with a beer in one hand. Over the years in interviews, Kristofferson said with all respect to Cash, the Man in Black wasn’t even home at the time, the demo tape was a song that no one ever actually cut and he certainly couldn’t fly a helicopter holding a beer.

He later said he might not have had a career without Cash.

“He kind of took me under his wing before he cut any of my songs,” Kristofferson said in a 2006 interview with The Associated Press. “He cut my first record that 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 a song title in his head called “Me and Bobby McKee,” named after a female secretary in his building. Kristofferson said in an interview in the magazine, “Performing Songwriter,” that he was inspired to write the lyrics about a man and woman on the road together after watching the Frederico Fellini film, “La Strada.”

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 “unreal” to be a peer with men who’d been his heroes.

“It was like seeing your face on Mount Rushmore,” 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 Hopper’s “The Last Movie,” 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 “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid,” a truck driver for the same director in 1978’s “Convoy” and a corrupt sheriff in director John Sayles’ 1996 “Lone Star.”

He told the AP in 2006 how he got his first acting gigs when he performed in Los Angeles.

“It just happened that my first professional gig was at the Troubadour in L.A. opening for Linda Rondstadt,” Kristofferson said. “There 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.”

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