Singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson, whose poignant lyrics made him a country music legend and whose rugged good looks led to 1970s Hollywood movie star fame, has died. He was 88.
Kristofferson died at his Maui, California, home on Saturday, a representative for Kristofferson confirmed to People magazine and Variety. A cause of death was not given.
“It is with a heavy heart that we share the news our husband/father/grandfather, Kris Kristofferson, passed away peacefully on Saturday, September 28 at home,” the Kristofferson family said in a statement. “We’re all so blessed for our time with him. Thank you for loving him all these many years, and when you see a rainbow, know he’s smiling down at us all.”
Even with a voice that he likened to “a frog,” Kristofferson released more than 20 studio albums and spent a decade playing with the Mount Rushmore of country music — Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson — in the outlaw country band The Highwaymen from 1985 to 1995.
“When you start talking about songwriters, you mention his name first,” Nelson said in 2020 about “one of my oldest best friends” Kristofferson, adding. “He’s probably written more great songs than anybody.”
A Rhodes Scholar who studied at Oxford University and one-time Golden Globes boxer, Kristofferson left a memorable mark on 1970s movie screens as the perfectly unkempt-haired, bearded leading man. His authentic performances included the romantic lead in Martin Scorsese’s 1974 drama “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” and as an aging alcoholic rock singer alongside Barbra Streisand’s rising star in 1976’s “A Star Is Born.”
The one-time college football stand-out starred in 1977’s pro football comedy “Semi-Tough” with Burt Reynolds and as an authority-bucking truck driver in director Sam Peckinpah’s road-action comedy “Convoy.”
The eldest of three children of Major General Henry Kristofferson, Kristoffer Kristofferson was born June 22, 1936, in Brownsville, Texas. He moved often in a military family. He loved listening to country star Hank Williams on the radio and began writing his own songs at 11 years old. The Golden Gloves boxer was a sporting legend at Pomona College, starring on the rugby and football teams and as sports editor of the college paper.
In 1965 his unit was preparing to deploy to Vietnam, but Capt. Kristofferson received an appointment to teach literature at West Point. Instead, he resigned his commission to pursue songwriting in Nashville. The aspiring singer-songwriter started as a bartender and a janitor at Columbia Recording Studios.
“I’m sure it knocked me off the course I had been on right then. I think that it made me, for a while, unmarketable,” Kristofferson said in an interview for the documentary, “Final Cut: The Making of ‘Heaven’s Gate’ and the Unmaking of a Studio.”
Kristofferson continued performing music until quietly retiring in 2020 after being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2004 and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2015.
In recent years, Kristofferson grappled with memory loss, telling Rolling Stone in 2016 that he believed it was due to Lyme disease, which he was diagnosed with earlier that year.
Kristofferson’s final performances came during Willie Nelson’s April two-night 90th birthday party concert at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl. During one emotional stage visit, a beaming Kristofferson joined Roseanne Cash to sing his classic “Lovin’ Her Was Easier.” Both artists were in tears as the song ended to wild applause from the audience.
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