Kris Kristofferson, ‘Blade’ Star and Country Music Legend, Dies at 88

Kris Kristofferson, the prolific and pioneering musician whose talents took him from Nashville to Hollywood and back again, has died. He was 88.

Kristofferson died on Saturday at his home in Maui, Hawaii, his family said.

“We’re all so blessed for our time with him,” a statement read. “Thank you for loving him all these many years, and when you see a rainbow, know he’s smiling down at us all.”

No cause of death was immediately shared.

A bearded, soulful crooner with a laconic sensuality that made him irresistible to audiences, Kristofferson lived half a dozen other lives before becoming the songwriting force behind country-pop hits like ‘Me and Bobby McGee,’ ‘Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down,’ and ‘Help Me Make It Through the Night.’

“I imagined myself into a pretty full life,” he quipped to NPR’s Fresh Air in 1999.

He was a military brat, born in Brownsville, Texas, in 1936 to a family headed by a father who finished his career as a U.S. Air Force major general. Growing up, the young Kristofferson fell in love with Hank Williams’ voice as it floated out of the radio and, inspired, wrote his first song at age 11, a Williams-esque tune called ‘I Hate Your Ugly Face.’

He was a promising athlete, playing rugby and varsity football at Pomona College in California and becoming a Golden Gloves boxer. Sports Illustrated took notice and, in 1954, made him one of their ‘Faces in the Crowd.’

He was a Rhodes scholar, moving from majoring in creative writing at Pomona—where he handily made Phi Beta Kappa and served as an ROTC cadet—to a master’s degree in English at Oxford University. (He left Oxford before graduation and married his high school sweetheart, Frances Beer. Their nine-year marriage would end in 1969.)

He was a helicopter pilot, an Army Airborne Ranger who seemed destined for a promising military career, rising through the ranks to become a captain. In 1965, though, as his unit deployed to Vietnam and he weighed the appointment he’d been given instead to teach literature at the United States Military Academy, Kristofferson decided to make a change. He headed south to Nashville, Tennessee.

There, he worked as a night janitor, among other odd jobs, sweeping the floors at Columbia Studios while scribbling songs on the side, hoping to make it big as a musician.

He made his own luck, hijacking an oil rig chopper and flying it to Johnny Cash’s home, where he landed on the legend’s lawn and pressed a tape of ‘Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down’ into his hand—at least, according to the version of the story Cash told.

“The truth is I almost landed on the roof of his house... and he wasn’t even there,” Kristofferson the Tampa Bay Times in 2013. “His groundskeeper came out and got the tape. But John liked the story enough that he made up that I got out of the helicopter with a beer in one hand and a tape in the other.”

His first album was released in 1970 by Monument Records. Three of his songs, including Cash’s version of ‘Sunday Mornin’,’ hit No. 1 on the country music charts.

Kristofferson’s gut-wrenchingly lyrical songwriting proved irresistible to other artists, who rushed to put out their own interpretations of his music. Janis Joplin’s only No. 1 single was her reinterpreted version of ‘Bobby McGee,’ which she recorded just days before her death from a heroin overdose in 1970.

Kristofferson was snatched up by Hollywood not long after. An initial credit in his buddy Dennis Hopper’s 1971 cult classic The Last Movie led to other roles, including as the titular outlaw in Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Bill L. Norton’s Cisco Pike, and Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.

It was opposite Barbra Streisand in 1976’s A Star Is Born, however, that Kristofferson ascended to become Hollywood royalty. Playing a a soused rock star fighting against his own irrelevance, Kristofferson earned a Golden Globe for best actor and more than a few snippy reviews. (“[He] didn’t exactly have to stay up nights preparing for this role,” Roger Ebert wrote, taking a swipe at Kristofferson’s notoriously hard-partying ways.)

He also starred in 1973’s Blume in Love, 1978’s Convoy, and 1980’s Heaven’s Gate, a career low for the actor and a total disaster for everyone involved. In the ’90s, his movie career rebounded with a recurring role as Wesley Snipes’ grizzled mentor in the Blade franchise.

All the while, Kristofferson continued recording and touring. A duet act with Rita Coolidge would turn into a seven-year marriage that imploded in 1980, though not before the pair earned two Grammys together.

In 1985, he joined forces with Cash, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings to form the Highwaymen, a country supergroup that would put out three warmly received albums over the ensuing decade.

Kristofferson was inducted the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2004 and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1985.

He announced his retirement in early 2021, around a year after he quietly gave what nobody knew at the time was his final full concert aboard the Outlaw Country Cruise. He performed the hits—‘Help Me,’ ‘Bobby McGee,’ and ‘Sunday Mornin’’ among them—and dug deep into his back catalog, according to Rolling Stone.

He ended the set with 1974’s ‘Please Don’t Tell Me How the Story Ends.’

Kristofferson is survived by his wife, Lisa Meyers; his eight children, Tracy, Kris Jr., Casey, Jesse, Jody, John, Kelly, and Blake; and his seven grandchildren.

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