Entertainment
Kristofferson died at his home in Maui, Hawaii on Saturday, family spokeswoman Ebie McFarland said in an email. He was 88.
FILE – Kris Kristofferson performs in concert at The American Music Theatre, April 12, 2019, in Lancaster, Pa. (Photo by Owen Sweeney/Invision/AP, File)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kris Kristofferson, a Rhodes scholar with a deft writing style and rough charisma who became a country music superstar and A-list Hollywood actor, has died.
Kristofferson died at his home in 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 reason was given. He was 88.
Beginning in the late 1960s, the Brownsville, Texas native wrote such classic 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 rocked “For the Good Times” or Janis Joplin kicked off “Me and Bobby McGee.”
Kristofferson, who could recite William Blake from memory, wove intricate folk lyrics about loneliness and tender romance into popular country music. With his long hair and bell-bottom pants and counterculture songs influenced by Bob Dylan, he represented a new breed of country songwriter along with peers such as Willie Nelson, John Prine and Tom T. Hall.
“There is no better songwriter alive than Kris Kristofferson,” Nelson said during a November 2009 award ceremony for Kristofferson hosted by BMI. “Everything he writes is a standard and we’re all just going to have to live with it.”
As an actor, he played the leading man opposite Barbara Streisand and Ellen Burstyn, but also had a penchant for shoot-out westerns and cowboy dramas.