2024-10-04 18:04:00
American singer, actor and songwriter Kris Kristofferson, who was one of the most famous figures in country music, died at the age of 88. He spent his last moments in peace, surrounded by loved ones at home on the Hawaiian island of Maui, a family spokesman announced Monday, according to the AP agency.
Kristofferson has had memory problems for the past two decades. The family did not say what caused his death.
The grandson of Swedish immigrants, he was born in 1936 in Brownsville, Texas. Thanks to a gifted scholarship, he studied literature at Oxford, England, originally wanting to become a writer. He later enlisted in the army and flew a helicopter. However, he left the military career, moved to the bastion of country music in Nashville and started composing brooding, poetic country songs – for example, he wrote Sunday Morning Coming Down for perhaps the biggest star of the genre, Johnny Cash.
The singer’s path to fame, which included several Grammy Awards, was launched by the album simply titled Kristofferson in 1970. It also contained the mega-hit Me and Bobby McGee, which was also sung by Janis Joplin. By the 1980s alone, over 450 performers had recorded his compositions.
On the cinema screens, Kristofferson excelled in 1973 with the role of the desperate Kid in the so-called anti-western Pat Garrett and the Billy Kid. The film Alice no longer lives by Martin Scorsese was also a success. He starred alongside Barbra Streisand in 1976’s A Star Is Born, which won him a Golden Globe for Best Actor.
His career was then hampered by his participation in the flop Nebeská brána. However, the drama The Singer from 1984 brought him back to the stage, and together with his colleague Willie Nelson, he earned an Oscar nomination for the music. In the super formation Highwayman with Cash, Nelson and Waylon Jennings, he again shone in the charts in the mid-80s. After 1998, he was seen, for example, in the vampire trilogy Blade, he also appeared in the sci-fi thriller Straightjacket with actress Keira Knightley.
Czechs could recognize Kris Kristofferson three times. In 2007 and 2012, he performed at the Prague Congress Center, and five years later he performed at Sychrov Castle.
Video: Kris Kristofferson sings Me and Bobby McGee
On the 1979 recording, Kris Kristofferson sings one of his biggest hits, Me and Bobby McGee. Photo: Reuters | Video: Columbia Records