Kris Kristofferson, country music legend and actor, dies at 88
FILE - Kris Kristofferson performs at Drammen Teater on June 2, 2019 in Drammen, Norway. (Photo by Per Ole Hagen/Redferns)
Kris Kristofferson, a country music legend and actor, has died.
His family told The Associated Press Sunday that he died at his home in Hawaii on Saturday. He was 88. No cause was given.
Kris Kristofferson country music
Kristofferson had a decades-long career in music, from which he quietly retired in 2020.
He wove intricate folk music lyrics about loneliness and tender romance into popular country music. With his long hair and bell-bottomed slacks and counterculture songs influenced by Bob Dylan, he represented a new breed of country songwriters along with such peers as Willie Nelson, John Prine and Tom T. Hall.
Starting in the late 1960s, the Brownsville, Texas native wrote such classics 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 as performed by others, whether Ray Price crooning "For the Good Times" or Janis Joplin belting out "Me and Bobby McGee."
In 1985, the country star joined Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings to form the group The Highway Men. He is also a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and won the Johnny Mercer Award from the Songwriter Hall of Fame.
Kris Kristofferson movies
In addition to writing and performing hits, Kristofferson reached sex symbol status back in the 1970s, and in 1971, he began a side career as an actor. In 1977, he won a Golden Globe award for his role in "A Star is Born" alongside Barbra Streisand. The movie was famous remade in 2018 starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper.
Kristofferson also starred opposite Ellen Burstyn in director Martin Scorsese's 1974 film "Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore," and acted alongside Wesley Snipes in Marvel’s "Blade" in 1998.
He also went on to star in the films "Semi-Tough," "Songwriter," "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid," "Lone Star," and "The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea."