Legendary Singer-Songwriter Kris Kristofferson Dead At 88

Kris Kristofferson, gifted songwriter, poet, and actor, tragically died on September 28, 2024 (via People). He was 88 years old. 

Kris Kristofferson, as the Country Music Hall of Fame explains, was a universally revered songwriter who got his start penning for other artists in the late 1960s through 1970s with tracks such as "Me and Bobby McGee," covered by the legendary Janis Joplin in 1971, Ray Price's "For the Good Times," and Bobby Bare's "Come Sundown." He launched his own solo career with hits such as "Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again)" and "Why Me," along the way collaborating with Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and more, who in turn inspired Kristofferson along his lifelong path of performance and songcraft.

Kristofferson wasn't merely a singer, though. He went from studying literature at the prestigious Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, with a particular focus on the poet William Blake, to being an Army Ranger and helicopter pilot, per Military, to launching an acting career. In fact, he played Bradley Cooper's role in the 1974 version of "A Star Is Born" with Barbara Streisand. 

The Kris Kristofferson website puts it better than anyone could: "He was an Oxford scholar, a defensive back, a bartender, a Golden Gloves boxer, a gandy dancer, a forest-fighter, a road crew member, and an Army Ranger who flew helicopters. He was a peacenik, a revolutionary, an actor, a superstar, a Casanova, and a family man. He was almost a teacher at West Point, though he gave that up to become a Nashville songwriting bum."

Kris Kristofferson was born in 1936, in Brownsville at the very southern tip of Texas near the Mexican border. The eldest of three children born to a military family, as Biography says, Kristofferson moved to Southern California to Pomona College to study literature, where he also played football and was a Golden Gloves boxer. He won short story competitions and, at 18 years old, two of his pieces, "Gone Are the Days," and "The Rock," were published in The Atlantic Monthly, as the Kris Kristofferson website says. When he finished his undergraduate in 1958, he continued his literary studies at Oxford University in England as a Rhodes Scholar, where he began transferring his lessons from Romantic poets such as Blake into songs when he began performing in small venues.

Still feeling pressured to conform to familial expectations, Kristofferson went into the military after getting his master's degree, where he was promoted to the rank of captain. He was even offered a position teaching literature at West Point. He refused, though, and retired from the service in 1965 to head to Nashville and pursue his dreams. As a result, his mother didn't speak with him for 20 years.

Perhaps Kristofferson's decision is best reflected in his quote, "I've come to appreciate how special a song is compared to other art forms, because you can carry it around in your head and your heart, and it remains part of you."

Kris Kristofferson officially retired from music and acting in 2021 after suffering with memory loss for a number of years, as the Chicago Sun Times says. Clips from his final 2020 performance aboard the Outlaw Country Cruise are available on Rolling Stone. As late as 2016, he released a newly recorded, double-volume set of classic songs "The Cedar Creek Sessions" to coincide with his 80th birthday.

Kristofferson was less successful in his acting than his music. "Heaven's Gate" almost sank his acting career entirely, due to poor critical and audience reception (not directed toward him, however). By the time he starred as Whistler in 1998's early-modern comic book film "Blade," alongside Wesley Snipes, Kristofferson's acting career was at least back on solid ground. He reprised this role in 2002's "Blade II," and his IMDb attests exactly to the host of other films in which he played.

In his personal life, Kristofferson had a whopping eight children across three marriages, as Closer Weekly relates. He married his final wife, Lisa Meyers, in 1983, and remained married to her until his death. By all accounts, Kristofferson was a loving and involved father, in no small part due to his wife teaching him about the "importance of balancing his career and life at home." As Kristofferson said, "As my family started getting bigger, it finally beat its way into my consciousness: 'Wake up, man. This is what really matters.'"