The country music superstar and A-list Hollywood actor died peacefully at the age of 88 surrounded by his family at his home in Maui, Hawaii, on Saturday.
This was confirmed by family spokeswoman Ebie McFarland and no cause of death was given.
Starting in the late 1960s, the Texas native wrote such classics standards as Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down, Help Me Make it Through the Night, For The Good Times and Me And Bobby McGee.
READ MORE: Global celebrity joins Oxford University in major change
Kristofferson was a singer himself, but many of his songs were best known as performed by others, whether Ray Price crooning For the Good Times or Janis Joplin belting out Me And Bobby McGee.
He received a master’s degree in English from Merton College at the University of Oxford as one of many accolades in a glittering career.
Kristofferson, who could recite William Blake from memory, wove intricate folk music lyrics about loneliness and tender romance into popular country music.
With his long hair, bell-bottomed trousers and counterculture songs influenced by Bob Dylan, he represented a new breed of country songwriters along with peers such as Willie Nelson, John Prine and Tom T Hall.
“There’s no better songwriter alive than Kris Kristofferson,” Nelson said during a November 2009 award ceremony held by BMI. “Everything he writes is a standard and we’re all just going to have to live with that.”
READ MORE: Oxford University loses out to Leeds in new rankings
As an actor, Kristofferson played the leading man opposite Barbara Streisand and Ellen Burstyn, but also had a fondness for shoot-out westerns and cowboy dramas.
He received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for 1976 romantic drama A Star Is Born.
He was a Golden Gloves boxer and American football player in college and turned down an appointment to teach at the US Military Academy at West Point, New York, to pursue songwriting in Nashville.
At times, the legend of Kristofferson was larger than real life. Johnny Cash liked to tell a mostly exaggerated story of how Kristofferson, a former US Army pilot, landed a helicopter on Cash’s lawn to give him a tape of Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down with a beer in one hand.
READ MORE: Oxfordshire gun offences rise to most in ten years
Oxford Mail readers can enjoy 30 per cent off their first year in this flash sale 👇🗞️https://t.co/hUJZeeOZrM
— Oxford Mail (@TheOxfordMail) September 29, 2024
Over the years in interviews, Kristofferson said he did land a helicopter at Cash’s house, but the Man in Black was not at home at the time, the demo tape was a song that no one ever actually cut, and he certainly could not fly a helicopter holding a beer.
In a 2006 interview with the Associated Press, he said he might not have had a career without Cash.
Help support trusted local news
Sign up for a digital subscription now: https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/subscribe/
As a digital subscriber you will get:
- Unlimited access to the Oxford Mail website
- Advert-light access
- Reader rewards
- Full access to our app