Kris Kristofferson: Country music legend and A Star Is Born actor dies

Kris Kristofferson, the country music legend and A Star Is Born actor, has died at the age of 88.

The singer-songwriter died peacefully at his home in Maui, Hawaii, on Saturday, family spokesperson Ebie McFarland said.

No cause of death was given but the musician had been suffering from memory loss since he was in his 70s.

Born in Brownsville, Texas, Kristofferson started his music career in the mid-1960s.

Despite being a singer himself, many of his songs were best known as performed by others, including Ray Price’s US number one hit For the Good Times and Janis Joplin’s 1971 single Me And Bobby McGee.

In the mid-1980s he joined forces with Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings to create the country supergroup The Highwaymen, releasing three albums before all four returned to their solo careers.

Former bandmate Nelson said there was “no better songwriter alive” when talking about Kristofferson during a 2009 awards ceremony.

“Everything he writes is a standard and we’re all just going to have to live with that,” Nelson said.

Kristofferson won a Grammy Award for hit Help Me Make It Through The Night and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2004.

As an actor, he won the 1976 Golden Globe Award for best actor after his performance in the romantic drama A Star Is Born opposite Barbra Streisand.

The film was a remake of the 1937 original with Janet Gaynor and Fredric March, and was later adapted into a musical starring Judy Garland and James Mason – and subsequently again in 2018 starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper.

Kristofferson also appeared opposite Ellen Burstyn in Martin Scorsese’s 1974 film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and alongside Wesley Snipes in Marvel’s Blade in 1998.

From caretaker to hitmaker

Before the stage and screen, Kristofferson was a boxer with US organisation Golden Gloves, he also gained a master’s degree in English at the University of Oxford, later turning down an opportunity to teach at a US military academy in New York to pursue songwriting in Nashville.

Hoping for a break into the industry, he worked as a part-time caretaker at Columbia Records’ Music Row studio.

In a 2006 interview, Kristofferson said he might not have had a career without Cash, who he said put him on stage for the first time.

Joplin, who he had a close relationship with, changed the lyrics to make Bobby McGee a man and cut her version just days before she died in 1970 from a drug overdose. The song became a posthumous number one hit for Joplin.

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In 1973, Kristofferson married fellow songwriter Rita Coolidge who he had a successful duet career, earning two Grammy Awards. They divorced in 1980.

The singer is survived by his wife Lisa, his eight children and seven grandchildren, Sky News’ US partner network NBC reported.

Tributes to country music legend

Dolly Parton led fans and fellow musicians and actors in paying tribute to Kristofferson.

She described his passing as a “great loss” and said: “I will always love you.”

Streisand paid tribute to Kristofferson in a post on social media, saying: “The first time I saw Kris performing at the Troubadour club in L.A. I knew he was something special.

“Barefoot and strumming his guitar, he seemed like the perfect choice for a script I was developing, which eventually became A Star Is Born.

“My thoughts go to Kris’ wife, Lisa who I know supported him in every way possible.”

Chief executive for the Country Music Hall of Fame Kyle Young said Kristofferson left “a resounding legacy.”

The likes of Grammy-winning singer Travis Tritt, Larry Gatlin and Wynonna Judd all paid tribute as well.