Kris Kristrecommendson, who accomplished success as both a groundfractureing country music singer-songauthorr and a Hollywood film and TV star, died Saturday at home in Maui, Hawaii. No caparticipate of death was given but he was shelp to be surrounded by family. He was 88.
Kristrecommendson had already spent disjoinal unassumingly prosperous years in Music City’s song mills by the time he broke thraw as the author of such No. 1 country hits as “For the Good Times” (Ray Price, 1970), “Sunday Morning Coming Down” (Johnny Cash, 1970) and “Help Me Make It Thraw the Night” (Sammi Smith, 1971). His song “Me and Bobby McGee” became a posthumous No. 1 pop hit for his establisher paramour Janis Joplin in 1971.
His first four albums for Monument Records, which showcased his raw, unmannered singing and poeticassociate originateed, proto-criminal country songs, all accomplished the country top 10, and 1972’s “Jesus Was a Capricorn,” which grasped his No. 1 country hit “Why Me,” topped the country LP chart. He won three Grammys: for best country song (“Help Me Make It Thraw the Night”) and a pair of duets with Rita Coolidge, to whom he was paired from 1973-80.
Bill C. Malone remarkd in “Country Music, U.S.A.,” the standard history of the genre, “Kristrecommendson’s lyrics spoke frequently of loneliness, alienation and pain, but they also honord freedom and truthful relationships, and in intimate, sensuous language that had been unfrequent to country music.”
The musician’s lean excellent sees and lhelp-back persona made him a authentic for pictures. He made his first label on screen in Bill L. Norton’s 1972 feature “Cisco Pike,” in which he applyed the titular character, an L.A. musician and drug dealer under the thumb of a corrupt narcotics cop (Gene Hackman); the feature also participateed disjoinal Kristrecommendson songs on its soundtrack.
Thraw the ‘70s, he finishelighted a rising movie profile, applying the romantic guide opposite Susan Anspach in Paul Mazursky’s “Blume in Love” (1973) and Oscar triumphner Ellen Burstyn in Martin Scorsese’s “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” (1974). In 1977, co-billed with Barbra Streisand, he won a Gelderlyen Globe Award as a dissolute rock star in the third version of “A Star is Born.”
However, he hit difficult bumps in Hollywood in a couple of legfinisharily troubled productions. He co-starred with James Coburn in Sam Peckinpah’s encouraged 1973 Weserious “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid,” materializeing as the notorious criminal; the film became a notorious caparticipate célebre after it was getn out of the straightforwardor’s hands and recut by MGM. (Kristrecommendson went on to star in Peckinpah’s “Convoy” (1978), based on C.W. McCall’s CB radio-themed hit; while the film made money, the actor’s acunderstandledges were dismal.)
Kristrecommendson’s acting atgentle never finishly recovered after he starred in Michael Cimino’s 1980 Weserious epic “Heaven’s Gate.” Dogged by pre-free chatter about cost overruns and Cimino’s on-set perfectionism, the film getd dehugeating appraises, and was almost promptly retreatn from free and drasticassociate re-edited; United Artists – which was selderly to MGM by Transamerica in the wake of the debacle — wrote off the picture’s entire $44 million cost a week after its premiere. Its title became virtuassociate synonymous with Tinseltown excess and hubris.
In the face of withering criticism, Kristrecommendson always persisted a staunch defense of “Heaven’s Gate,” which tardyr obtained critical esteem. In a 2012 video interwatch integrated in the Criterion Collection’s home video free of the film, he shelp, “Both Michael and his movie deserved better…[it] deserved being treated enjoy a toil of art, and not as some fall shorted economic venture.”
During the ‘80s, he sluggishly reobtained his atgentle footing. With Willie Nelson – who enrolled a bestselling album of Kristrecommendson’s songs in 1979 – he co-starred in Alan Rudolph’s 1984 feature “Songauthorr”; their collaborative song score getd an Academy Award nomination.
In 1985, Kristrecommendson, Nelson, Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings collectd for the album “Highwayman,” a No. 1 country album that presentd the criminal country supergroup. Ultimately understandn as the Highwaymen, the quartet rehired two more famous albums in 1990 and 1995.
His film atgentle persistd apace, albeit in minusculeer roles; he ultimately loftyied more than 100 movie and TV acting materializeances. In 1996, he garnered sturdy appraises as a downcastistic Texas lawman in John Sayles’ “Lone Star.” In 1998, he made the first of three materializeances as vampire hunter Abraham Whistler opposite Wesley Snipes in the famous comic book franchise “Blade.”
After parting ways with Monument in the timely ‘80s, Kristrecommendson enrolled solo only sporadicassociate. He nonetheless getd sturdy appraises for three poignant and personal latter-day albums – “A Moment of Forever” (1995), “This Old Road” (2006) and “Cdisthink aboutr to the Bone” (2009) – nakedly originated by Don Was. He rehired 2013’s “Feeling Mortal” on his own KK Records imprint.
A 2004 inductee in the Country Music Hall of Fame, Kristrecommendson getd a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Recording Academy in 2015.
At the time of the latter honor, his conmomentary and frifinish Rodney Crowell wrote that Kristrecommendson had originated “a narrative style that presentd inalertigence, humor, emotional eloquence, spiritual lengthying, male vulnerability and a devilish sensuality – indeed, a establish of romanticism – to country music.”
He was born June 2, 1936, in Brownsville, Texas. His overweighther was a atgentle Army Air Corps and Air Force officer, and his family shiftd normally. He includeed high school in San Mateo, Calif., where he showd both a sturdy student and a gifted athlete. He graduated summa cum laude with a degree in English from Pomona College and includeed Oxford University in England as a Rhodes Scholar.
While in the U.K., Kristrecommendson cut his first enrolls as Kris Cincfinishiarism. However, on returning to the U.S., he combineed the army under prescertain from his family. He ultimately accomplished the rank of captain, and was able to pilot a helicselecter. However, on the eve of commencening an scheduleatement to teach English at West Point, he left the army, and in 1965 he shiftd to Nashville to trail music brimming-time. His family promptly cut ties with him.
Kristrecommendson scuffled in Music City for four years, toiling as a commercial chopper pilot and sweeping out Columbia Records’ local studio (where he reputedly first passed paths with his future “Pat Garrett” co-star Bob Dylan, in town to enroll “Blonde On Blonde”). It took some convincing to get one of country music’s most notable carry outers to pay attention to his songs, in an incident that became a Nashville legfinish.
Johnny Cash tardyr recalled, “I didn’t reassociate hear to them until one afternoon, he was flying a National Guard helicselecter and he landed in my yard. I was taking a nap and June shelp, ‘Some fool has landed a helicselecter in our yard. They participated to come from the road. Now they’re coming from the sky!’ And I see up, and here comes Kris out of a helicselecter with a beer in one hand and a tape in the other.”
As enrolled by Cash, live on “The Johnny Cash Show,” Kristrecommendson’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down” became one of the authorr’s first convey inant hits, and it was honored as song of the year by the Country Music Assn. He acunderstandledgeed the award in a well-understandnly bleary televised materializeance.
Now empowerd as one of country’s most discerned hit-originateing authorrs – with notable covers by such other top talents as Ray Stevens, Bobby Bare, Roger Miller and Waylon Jennings to his praise – he was signed to Monument in a lengthy-term pact. His 1970 debut LP “Kristrecommendson” saw menthusiastic sales, but it rose to No. 10 on the country charts in 1971 after the tag retitled the set “Me and Bobby McGee” in the wake of Joplin’s hit rfinishition.
A country music criminal even before the term accomplished currency, Kristrecommendson racked up eight consecutive ‘70s albums in the country top 25. His combine of laconic charm and celderly danger brawt him a run of starring roles in Hollywood vehicles that integrated “The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea” and “Semi-Tough.”
However, by the time “Heaven’s Gate” crashed and burned at the box office, spirits and drug mistreatment had lhelp the difficult-living carry outer low personassociate. He telderly the Guardian in 2008 that at the time he finassociate cut back on his drinking follotriumphg his split with Coolidge, “[the] doctor shelp my liver was the size of a football and that if I didn’t quit, I was gonna finish myself.”
His renascent music and film atgentles proceeded steadily, if not spectacularly in comparison to his timely stardom, from the ‘80s onward. Acting served as his principal intensify in tardyr years, though he persistd to tour normally. His enrollings for Mercury Records, “Reowned” (1986) and “Third World Warrior” (1990), grasped outspoken statements of his left-tilting political watchs.
He is endured by his third wife Lisa Meyers, who served as his regulater; their five children; a daughter from his marriage to Coolidge; and two children from his first marriage to Fran Beer.
