Kris Kristofferson, American country singer and actor, dies at the age of 88. Kris Kristofferson

Kris Kristofferson, the country singer who successfully balanced a prolific acting career with his music, has died at the age of 88.

Christopherson's family confirmed his death on Sunday evening, saying he “died peacefully” at his home on Saturday. “We are all very fortunate for the time we had with him,” said the statement signed by his wife, Lisa, his eight children and seven grandchildren. “Thank you for loving him all these many years, and when you see a rainbow, know that he is smiling at us all.”

An admirer of the courage, emotional vulnerability, and literary craft of his country's songwriting, Kristofferson frequently topped the country charts in the United States and cover versions of his songs became hits for artists including Janis Joplin, Gladys Knight, and Johnny Cash. In the mid-1970s, he worked with film directors including Martin Scorsese and Sam Peckinpah, and won a Golden Globe for his work opposite Barbra Streisand in the 1976 remake of A Star is Born.

Born in Texas in 1936, Kristofferson attended high school in California and initially wanted to become a novelist, later studying literature at Pomona College in Southern California and at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. Inspired by the emerging rock and roll scene, his first foray into music was in the UK as Chris Carson, although the songs he recorded were never released.

He continued to perform music during his time in the US Army, where he became a helicopter pilot, a skill he pursued (in the oil industry and the National Guard) after he left the forces in 1965 – much to the anger of his military family. He later said: “I pride myself on being the best laborer or the man who can dig ditches the fastest.” “Something inside me made me want to do hard things…and part of that was that I wanted to be a writer, and I thought I had to go out and live.”

He moved to the country music hub of Nashville, where he worked as a bartender and janitor at Columbia Recording Studios. In the late 1960s he wrote songs for Jerry Lee Lewis and country singers including Ray Stevens, Faron Young and Billy Walker, but his solo career faltered.

The breach came after he landed a National Guard helicopter at Johnny Cash's home and handed him a tape of his songs, later describing the incident as “the kind of invasion of privacy that I wouldn't recommend.” Cash was impressed with Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down and his recording of Kristofferson's song topped the country charts in 1970 and won Song of the Year at the Country Music Association Awards.

That year, Kristofferson recorded the first of 18 studio albums he would release during his career. He briefly dated Janis Joplin, who recorded his song Me and Bobby McGee, which became a posthumous No. 1 hit in 1970. Another Kristofferson song from that year, “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” became a hit for Sammy Smith. It was later covered by Elvis Presley, Gladys Knight, Mariah Carey and others.

By the time his fourth album Jesus Was a Capricorn topped the country charts in 1972, the strikingly handsome Kristofferson had embarked on an acting career, making his debut in Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie. Other notable films include playing the outlaw Billy the Kid in Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973), opposite Ellen Burstyn in Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) and with Burt Reynolds in the sports comedy-drama Quasi. Tough (1977). A Star Is Born cemented its success in Hollywood, but was later undermined by Heaven's Gate (1980), which famously flopped at the box office.

In 1979, Willie Nelson made a hit album of Kristofferson covers, and in 1982 the duo collaborated with Dolly Parton and Brenda Lee on a compilation of mid-'60s hits. In 1985, Kristofferson and Nelson formed another supergroup, the Highwaymen, with Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings. Their debut album, Highwayman, with its title track written by Jimmy Webb, returned Kristofferson to the top of the country charts.

In the 1980s, he was a vocal critic of US President Ronald Reagan and foreign policy in Central America, when the United States funded the fight against leftist forces in El Salvador and Nicaragua. Kristofferson's 1986 album Repossessed referenced the struggles.

Although his acting career has been steady, he got a boost in 1996 by playing the villainous Sheriff Charlie Wade in director John Sayles's popular neo-western Lone Star alongside Chris Cooper and Matthew McConaughey. This led to prominent roles, including that of vampire hunter Abraham Whistler in three Blade films, starring Wesley Snipes.

Kristofferson retired in 2021. His last film role was in the Ethan Hawke-directed drama Blaze (2018), and his most recent album was 2016's The Cedar Creek Sessions.

He was married three times, first to Fran Bear in 1960. He married singer Rita Coolidge in 1973, and their duet album that year, Full Moon, became one of Kristofferson's biggest hits, reaching the Top 30 on the pop charts. In 1980. He survived his third wife, Lisa Myers, whom he married in 1983 and with whom he had five children, in addition to three other children from his first two marriages.