Kris Kristofferson, Actor And Grammy-Winning Country Singer, Dead At 88

FILE - Kris Kristofferson performs in concert at The American Music Theatre, April 12, 2019, in Lancaster, Pa. via Associated Press LOS ANGELES — 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. Starting in the late 1960s, the Brownsville, 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.” 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.” DRAMMEN, NORWAY - JUNE 02: Kris Kristofferson performs at Drammen Teater on June 2, 2019 in Drammen, Norway. “There’s no better songwriter alive than Kris Kristofferson,” Nelson said during a November 2009 award ceremony for Kristofferson held by BMI. “Shaking his hand when I was still in the Army backstage at the Grand Ole Opry was the moment I’d decided I’d come back,” Kristofferson said. Kristofferson said in an interview in the magazine, “Performing Songwriter,” that he was inspired to write the lyrics about a man and woman on the road together after watching the Frederico Fellini film, “La Strada.” Joplin, who had a close relationship with Kristofferson, changed the lyrics to make Bobby McGee a man and cut her version just days before she died in 1970 from a drug overdose.