Kris Kristofferson, who became one of the most influential American singer-songwriters of his time with acts like Me and Bobby McGee, as well as a successful actor, died Saturday at the age of 88, Rolling Stone reported, citing its spokesperson. Died at the age of. Christopherson had been suffering from memory loss since his 70s. ,Also read: A Star Is Born star Kris Kristofferson dies at 88,
Kris Kristofferson’s impressive career
Kristofferson was a renaissance man – an athlete with a poet’s sensibilities, a former Army officer and helicopter pilot, a Rhodes Scholar who took a job as a janitor that proved to be a brilliant career move.
Kristofferson first established himself in the music world as a songwriter in the country music capital of Nashville – penning songs like the Grammy-winning Help Me Make It Through the Night, For the Good Times and plaintive numbers for one-time girlfriend Janis Joplin. Wrote hit films. 1 hit, “Me and Bobby McGee.”
In the early 1970s he became famous as a performer with a thundering, unpolished baritone, as well as a sought-after actor, notably playing Barbra Streisand in one of the most popular films of 1976, “A Star Is Born”. With.
Christopherson was born on June 22, 1936, in Brownsville, Texas, and moved frequently because his father was a general in the Air Force. After graduating from Pomona College in California, where he played football and rugby, Christopherson attended Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship and then fulfilled a family tradition by joining the Army.
He studied at the Army’s elite Ranger School, learned to operate helicopters and rose to the rank of Captain. In 1965 Kristofferson was offered a position teaching English at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, fascinated by the works of the poet William Blake, but turned it down in order to move to Nashville.
Kristofferson became a janitor at the Columbia Records studio because it would give him the opportunity to pitch his songs to big-name stars recording there. He also worked as a helicopter pilot transporting workers between Louisiana oil fields and offshore drilling rigs.
During that time Kristofferson wrote some of his most memorable songs, including “Help Me Make It Through the Night”, which he said he wrote on an oil rig.
His most daring song pitch came when he landed his helicopter on Johnny Cash’s lawn – although he refuted Cash’s version of exiting the cockpit with an audio tape in one hand and a beer in the other. Cash later had a No. 1 hit with Kristofferson’s lament “Sunday Morning Comin’ Down”.
Kristofferson’s best songs were filled with seekers, troublemakers and broken souls trying to find love, salvation or relief from the hangover that life had given them. According to Bobby McGee’s broken-hearted narrator, Kristofferson, the song was inspired by Federico Fellini’s film La Strada, summarizing it with the line “Freedom is another word for having nothing left to lose. “
Kristofferson’s early role model Willie Nelson told CBS, “Chris brought (country music) from the dark ages to today, made it acceptable and brought out the best songs – I mean, the best possible songs.” “60 Minutes” in a 1999 interview. “Simple but profound.”
Kristofferson recorded four albums with Rita Coolidge, the second of his three wives, in the 1970s and joined Nelson, Cash and Waylon Jennings in the country music supergroup the Highwaymen in the 1980s and ’90s.
When Kris Kristofferson ruled Hollywood
Kristofferson’s great looks led to roles in films such as Cisco Pike, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace at the Sea, Convoy, Heaven’s Gate, Lone Star, and Blade.
Christopherson led a difficult life in his heyday. There was a long line of girlfriends and performances that he couldn’t remember because he was drunk. He quit drinking alcohol – but not marijuana – when a doctor told him he was killing himself.
“It was fun,” Kristofferson told 60 Minutes. “I thought this was how an artist should live. I always agreed with Blake when he said that the path of excess leads to the palace of wisdom… I think God protects fools and lyricists. “
After his early stardom, Kristofferson took up causes such as the United Farm Workers and spoke out against US government involvement in Nicaragua and El Salvador in the 1980s.
Kristofferson began experiencing debilitating memory loss in his mid-70s, and his performance suffered as a result. Doctors told him it appeared to be the beginning of Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, possibly caused by head injuries sustained while boxing and playing football and rugby in his younger days.
But in 2016, his wife Lisa told Rolling Stone magazine that Kristofferson had been diagnosed with Lyme disease, which can cause memory problems, and after treatment and coming off Alzheimer’s medication, his memory had partially returned. It started.
Kristofferson remained active on the 2016 tour which included performances with Nelson and stops in Europe. That year he celebrated his 80th birthday by releasing an album titled “The Cedar Creek Sessions”, which included live versions of his most famous songs.
Christopherson and his third wife, Lisa, whom he married in 1983, lived on the Hawaiian island of Maui for more than 30 years. He had eight children.
