Kris Kristofferson, US country singer and actor, dies aged 88

Kris Kristofferson, a country singer who also had a successful acting career, has passed away at the age of 88.

On Sunday night, Kristofferson's family confirmed his passing, stating that he "passed away peacefully" at home on Saturday. We as a whole are so honored for our experience with him," read the proclamation, which was endorsed by his significant other Lisa, his eight youngsters and seven grandkids. " Thank you for loving him for so long, and when you see a rainbow, know that he is looking down on us all."

Kris Kristofferson in 2007 Kris Kristofferson – a life in pictures Kristofferson frequently topped the US country charts, and cover versions of his songs were hits for artists like Janis Joplin, Gladys Knight, and Johnny Cash. 

He was admired for the grit, emotional vulnerability, and literary craft of his country songwriting. He collaborated with Sam Peckinpah and Martin Scorsese during the middle of the 1970s. He won a Golden Globe for his role in the 1976 remake of A Star is Born alongside Barbra Streisand.

On Instagram, Streisand paid tribute to her co-star, describing him as a "special" and "charming" performer. She wrote, "Seeing him receive the love and recognition he so richly deserved was a joy."

Dolly Parton, who sang From Here to the Moon and Back as a duet with Kristofferson, wrote: What a terrible loss! What a talented author! What an amazing actor. What a wonderful friend! Dolly, I will always love you.

Reba McEntire, a country singer, wrote: What a gentleman, generous spirit, and lover of language! I'm glad I got to meet and interact with him. one of my favorite individuals."

in A Star is Born alongside Barbra Streisand.

In the 1976 film A Star Is Born, Kristofferson and Barbra Streisand performed as a double act. Photograph: Allstar/Warner Bros. Kristofferson was born in Texas in 1936. He went to high school in California and initially wanted to write novels. He went on to study literature as a Rhodes scholar at the University of Oxford and Pomona College in southern California. His first foray into music was as Kris Carson in the United Kingdom, where he was inspired by the nascent rock'n'roll scene. However, the songs he recorded were never released.

During his time in the US army, he continued his musical career and became a helicopter pilot. After he left the military in 1965, he continued his skill in the oil industry and the National Guard, which enraged his military family. He later stated, "I took pride in being the best laborer or the person who could dig the ditches the quickest." I figured that I had to go out and live because I wanted to be a writer, and something inside of me made me want to do the hard things.

He made the move to Nashville, the center of country music, where he worked as a bartender and janitor for Columbia Recording Studios. He wrote songs for country singers like Ray Stevens, Faron Young, and Billy Walker in the late 1960s, but his solo career floundered.

He made a breakthrough when he handed Johnny Cash a tape of his songs from a National Guard helicopter and landed at his house. Later, he said that was "kind of an invasion of privacy that I wouldn't recommend." Cash was a fan of Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down, and his recording of Kristofferson's song reached the top of the country chart in 1970 and won song of the year at the Country Music Association awards.

In that year, Kristofferson made the first of his 18 studio albums, which he would eventually release. After Janis Joplin's death in 1970, he had a brief relationship with her, and her song Me and Bobby McGee became a No. 1 hit. One more Kristofferson tune from that year, Assist Me With enduring the Evening, turned into a hit single for Sammi Smith and was subsequently covered by Elvis Presley, Gladys Knight, Mariah Carey and others.

at the Country Music Awards in 1983 with Johnny Cash.

Full-screen image shows Johnny Cash attending the Country Music Awards in 1983. Photograph: AP When Kristofferson's fourth album, Jesus Was a Capricorn, reached the top spot on the country album chart in 1972, he had already begun his acting career, making his debut in Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie.

 As the outlaw Billy the Kid in Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973), alongside Ellen Burstyn in Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), and together with Burt Reynolds in the sports comedy-drama Semi-Tough (1977), among other notable roles, His success in Hollywood was cemented by A Star Is Born, but it was later undermined by Heaven's Gate (1980), a well-known box office failure.

Willie Nelson released a hit album of covers by Kristofferson in 1979, and in 1982, they collaborated with Dolly Parton and Brenda Lee to put together a compilation of their songs from the mid-60s. Together with Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash, Kristofferson and Nelson formed the Highwaymen in 1985, a second supergroup. The title track of their debut album, Highwayman, was written by Jimmy Webb. It brought Kristofferson back to the top of the country charts.

He was a vocal critic of US president Ronald Reagan's foreign policy in Central America in the 1980s, when the US funded combat in El Salvador and Nicaragua against left-wing forces. The conflicts were mentioned on the 1986 album Repossessed by Kristofferson.

2017's Glastonbury festival features Kris Kristofferson's performance.

In the acclaimed neo-western Lone Star, which starred Chris Cooper and Matthew McConaughey, he played the villainous sheriff Charlie Wade, giving his steady acting career a boost in 1996. It led to prominent roles, one of which was playing the vampire hunter Abraham Whistler in three Blade films starring Wesley Snipes.

In 2021, Kristofferson will retire. His final film role was in the drama Blaze (2018), directed by Ethan Hawke. His most recent album, The Cedar Creek Sessions, was released in 2016.

He was married three times, the first time in 1960 to Fran Beer. In 1973, he tied the knot with Rita Coolidge, a singer. Their duet album, Full Moon, was one of Kristofferson's biggest hits that year, reaching the Top 30 of the pop charts. In 1980, they divorced. Lisa Meyers, his third wife, who he married in 1983 and with whom he had five children in addition to the three he had from his first two marriages, is his surviving spouse.