KRIS KRISTOFFERSON
(22 June 1936 – 28 September 2024)
The singer-songwriter and actor Kris Kristofferson has died at the age of 88. He is considered to be one of the great exponents of Country music, but not in the generally accepted style of the Nashville sound, but producing a more edgy, raw kind of so-called ‘outlaw’ music. His own songs are very unlike what we recognise as Country music, with its rowdy, high-spirited rollicking style, because he wrote in a more contemplative way that usually went straight to the heart. As well as being a soloist, he joined forces with other Country singers Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings and they became known as The Highwaymen, a supergroup of outlaw Country musicians.
He was born Kristoffer Kristofferson in Brownsville, Texas, to Lars Henry Kristofferson, a US Army Air Corps officer, and his wife Mary Ann Ashbrook. His father wanted him to have a military career but as the family moved a lot during his father’s time in the service, they ended up in San Mateo, California, where Kris graduated from high school. From 1954 he enrolled at Pomona College with the intention of being a writer. Some of his early and quite personal writings were published in Atlantic Monthly. In college he was a fine sportsman, playing rugby union and American football and he excelled in athletics. For his rugby prowess he was featured in Sports Illustrated and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Along with fellow Country singers Johnny Cash and Rita Coolidge (who later became his second wife) he attended an alumni weekend to receive an honorary doctorate. He then won a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Merton College at the University of Oxford where he also played rugby, boxed and began to write songs. Through his manager Larry Parnes (the man himself) he got a record deal singing under the name of Kris Carson. Not much happened then, but he left Oxford with a Bachelor of Philosophy degree in English literature. In 1961 he married his girlfriend Fran Mavia Beer.
He was commissioned by the US army and later became a captain and a trained helicopter pilot stationed in Germany where he formed a band before being assigned to teaching English literature at West Point. He left the army and headed for Nashville, where he met Johnny Cash for whom he wrote some songs, including ‘Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down’ which won Song of the Year at the 1970 Country Music Association Awards. Janis Joplin, Gordon Lightfoot and Jerry Lee Lewis all had hits with his ‘Me and Bobby McGee’, Joe Simon too with ‘Help Me Make It Through the Night’, while Patti Page, Peggy Lee and Kenny Rogers were all blessed with success from his songs.
Kristofferson performed solo and recorded his own albums and appeared at big music events such as the Isle of Wight Festival. Then he entered the film business. He first appeared in The Last Movie (1971), Dennis Hopper’s follow-up to Easy Rider. Next, he starred in Cisco Pike (1972), playing a musician and drug dealer with Gene Hackman, followed by Blume in Love for Paul Mazursky with George Segal, and three films directed by Sam Peckinpah: Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, with the latter role for Kris, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, a Western with Kris as ‘the Biker’, and Convoy, a trucking action-comedy with Ali MacGraw and Ernest Borgnine. Michael Ritchie’s Semi-Tough followed and Kris was particularly good opposite an Oscar-winning Ellen Burstyn in Martin Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.
Perhaps Kris Kristofferson will be best-remembered as an actor for A Star Is Born with Barbra Streisand, where he played a self-destructive rock star on the wane, while his singing protégé (Streisand) is heading for stardom. The film won an Academy Award for the song ‘Evergreen’, while Streisand, Kristofferson, the film, the score and ‘Evergreen’ all won Golden Globes. Kris made more films including Alan J. Pakula’s Rollover with Jane Fonda, The Last Days of Frank and Jesse James with Cash and Kris in the title roles, Flashpoint with Treat Williams, Alan Rudolph’s Trouble in Mind with Keith Carradine, and John Sayles’ Oscar-nominated Lone Star, as well as Michael Cimino’s financially disastrous Heaven’s Gate, co-starring Christopher Walken, Jeff Bridges, John Hurt and Isabelle Huppert, which was voted one of the 100 greatest American films of all time by BBC Culture. His music and acting careers were in a state of flux but Kristofferson kept both going. There were good times such as working with Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton and Brenda Lee, and he and Nelson starred in Alan Rudolph’s Songwriter (1984) for which he was nominated for an Oscar for best original song score.
He continued to release albums and in 2009 the LP Closer to the Bone found him in nostalgic mood reflecting on life as it is now. He received the honour of being Broadcast Music Inc’s Icon at the 2009 BMI Country Awards, just one of four dozen such accolades he had gathered over the years. He also won several Country Music Association Awards, including Lifetime Achievement, and he won four Grammys. His final concert was held in Fort Pierce, Florida, in 2020.
Kristofferson held differing political views but played benefits for the United Farm Workers, Palestinian children and for Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist wrongly accused of murder. Kris was a good man and performer but, according to one of his wives, he was a terrible husband. After his first marriage to Fran Mavia Beer ended in divorce in 1969, he married Rita Coolidge in 1973. After that divorce (in 1980) he wed Lisa Meyers. He had eight children from his three wives.
MICHAEL DARVELL