FILE – Kris Kristofferson performs in concert at the American Music Theater in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on April 12, 2019. (Photo by Owen Sweeney/Invision/AP, File)Owen Sweeney/Owen Sweeney/Invision /APFILE – Country star Johnny Cash walks out of the Country Music Awards in Nashville, Tennessee, October 1983, singing along to Kris Kristofferson. Kristofferson, a Rhodes scholar with a deft writing style and rugged charisma who became a country music superstar and an A-list Hollywood actor, died Saturday. September 28, 2024. APFILE – Kris Kristofferson poses for a portrait on August 15, 1995 in Nashville, Tennessee. Mark Humphrey/APFILE – Actor Kris Kristofferson walks the red carpet during the premiere of his new movie “Dreamer.” October 9, 2005 in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Rick Francis/APFILE – Kris Kristofferson performs at Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, June 13, 2010, Manchester, Tennessee. Mark Humphrey/APFILE – Kris Kristofferson performed on stage August 1973. APFILE – Producer Jon Peters, from left, Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson attend a preview screening of the film “A Star Is Born” in New York on December 23, 1976. Kristofferson, a Rhodes scholar with a masterful writing style and rugged charisma who became a country music superstar and Hollywood A-list actor, died on Saturday, September 28, 2024. Suzanne Vlamis/AP
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kris Kristofferson, the Rhodes scholar with a deft writing style and rugged charisma who became a country music superstar and Hollywood A-list actor, has died.
Kristofferson died Saturday at his home in Maui, Hawaii, family spokeswoman Evie McFarland said in an email. He was 88 years old.
McFarland said Kristofferson passed away peacefully surrounded by his family. No cause was given.
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Beginning in the late 1960s, the Brownsville, Texas, native began recording country and rock ‘n’ roll songs such as “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down,” “Help Me Make it Through the Night,” “For the Good Times,” and “Me.” Composed a standard. “And Bobby McGee” became his most famous song as a posthumous hit for Janis Joplin.
He starred opposite Ellen Burstyn in Martin Scorsese’s 1974 film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, and opposite Barbra Streisand in 1976’s A Star Is Born. In 1998, he co-starred with Wesley Snipes in the Marvel film Blade.
Kristofferson, who could recite the poems of William Blake, weaved folk lyrics about loneliness and tender romance into popular country music. He represented a new breed of country songwriters, along with Willie Nelson, John Prine, and Tom T. Hall.
“There is no better songwriter than Kris Kristofferson,” Nelson said at the 2009 BMI Awards ceremony for Kristofferson.
Kristofferson retired from performing and recording in 2021, making only occasional guest appearances on stage.
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Nelson and Kristofferson would team up with Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings to form the country supergroup The Highwaymen starting in the mid-1980s.
Kristofferson was a Golden Glove-winning boxer, rugby star, and college football player. She holds a master’s degree in English from the University of Oxford. As a captain in the U.S. Army, he flew helicopters, but turned down an offer to teach at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, to pursue composition in Nashville. Wanting to break into the industry, he worked as a part-time janitor at Columbia Records’ Music Row studio in 1966, when Dylan recorded songs for his seminal double album, Blonde on Blonde. Ta.
At times, Kristofferson’s legend was larger than reality. Cash liked to tell an almost exaggerated story about how Kristofferson landed a helicopter on Cash’s lawn, beer in hand, and gave him a tape of “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down.” In interviews over the years, Kristofferson expressed his utmost respect for Cash, saying that the Man in Black wasn’t even home at the time, that the demo tape was a song that no one had ever actually cut, and that he made a mistake. He said he could not have operated the helicopter without it. Beer.
He later said that without Cash he might not have had his career.
“He protected me before he cut my songs,” Kristofferson said in a 2006 interview with The Associated Press. “He broke my first record, the record of the year. He was the one who put me on stage for the first time.”
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One of his most recorded songs, “Me and Bobby McGee,” was written on the recommendation of Monument Records founder Fred Foster. Foster had in mind the title of the song, “Me and Bobby McKee,” after a female secretary in his building. In an interview with Performing Songwriter magazine, Kristofferson said that watching Frederico Fellini’s film La Strada inspired him to write lyrics about a man and a woman traveling together.
In 1973, he married fellow songwriter Rita Coolidge, and they had a successful duet career, winning two Grammy Awards. They divorced in 1980.
The formation of the Highwaymen with Nelson, Cash and Jennings was another important point in his career as a performer. He told The Associated Press in 2005 that it was “surreal” to stand alongside the men who were his heroes.
“It was like seeing your face on Mount Rushmore,” he said.
The group released only three albums between 1985 and 1995. Jennings died in 2002, followed by Cash a year later. Of the four, only Nelson is currently alive.
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His first film role was in 1971’s The Last Movie, directed by Dennis Hopper.
In addition to leading roles, he was also fond of westerns.
He played a young outlaw in Sam Peckinpah’s 1973 film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, a truck driver in Sam Peckinpah’s 1978 film Convoy, and John Sayles’ 1996 film He played a corrupt sheriff in Lone Star.
He told The Associated Press how he got his first acting job in Los Angeles in 2006.
“It just so happened that my first professional job was at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, where I opened for Linda Ronstadt,” Kristofferson said. “A lot of people from the film industry were there, and even though I had no experience, I started getting film offers.Of course, I had no acting experience either.”
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Hall reported from Nashville. AP National Writer Hillel Italia contributed to this report.