Kris Kristofferson, Songwriter Whose Poetic Lyrics Transcended Genre, Dead at 88

Kris Kristofferson, a Rhodes scholar with a deft writing style and rough charisma who became a country music superstar and A-list Hollywood actor, has died.

Kris Kristofferson, who became one of the most influential American singer-songwriters of his time with works such as “Me and Bobby McGee,” as well as a successful actor, died Saturday at the age of 88, Rolling Stone reported, citing his spokesperson.

Kristofferson had been suffering from memory loss since his 70s.

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 in what turned out to be a brilliant career move.

Kristofferson first established himself in the music world as a songwriter in the country music capital of Nashville – writing hits such as the Grammy-winning “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” “For the Good Times,” and one-time girlfriend Janis Joplin’s plaintive No. 1 hit, “Me and Bobby McGee.”

In the early 1970s he became well-known as a performer with a rumbling, unpolished baritone, as well as an in-demand actor, notably opposite Barbra Streisand in “A Star Is Born,” one of the most popular films of 1976.

Kristofferson was born in Brownsville, Texas, on June 22, 1936, 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, Kristofferson attended Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship and then fulfilled the family tradition by joining the Army.

Kristofferson’s best songs were filled with seekers, wastrels and broken souls trying to find love, redemption or relief from the hangover that life had given them. The broken-hearted narrator of “Bobby McGee,” a song Kristofferson said was inspired by the Federico Fellini film “La Strada,” summed it up with the line “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”

“Kris brought (country music) kind of from the dark ages up to the present-day time, made it acceptable and brought great lyrics – I mean, the best possible lyrics,” Willie Nelson, an early role model for Kristofferson, told CBS’s “60 Minutes” in a 1999 interview. “Simple but profound.

Kristofferson 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.