Background
Kristofferson, Kris was born on June 22, 1936 in Brownsville, Texas, United States.
Kristofferson, Kris was born on June 22, 1936 in Brownsville, Texas, United States.
Bachelor in Creative Literature, Pomona College, 1958. Doctor (honorary), Pomona College, 1974. Rhodes scholar, Oxford University, England, 1960.
From Pomona College, he became a Rhodes scholar, an army officer, a teacher, and only then a singer.
It was as the latter that he began to be cast in pictures: acting in and doing the music for The Last Movie (71, Dennis Hopper); doing both on Cisco Pike (72, B. W. L. Norton); not doing the music but so puppy-fat fresh, lazv, and camal as the Kid in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (73, Sam Peckinpah); The Gospel Road (73, Robert Elfstrom); pretty good in a plain role in Blame in Love (73, Paul Mazurskv); a small role in Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (74, Peckinpah); Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (74, Martin Scorsese); a very romantic image in The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (76, Lewis John Carlino); Vigilante Force (76, George Armitage).
He was self-parody in A Star Is Born (76, Frank Pierson); a football player in Semi-Tough (77, Michael Ritchie); Convoy (78, Peckinpah); looking superb as a Western gentleman in Heaven’s Gate (80, Michael Cimino); in high finance with [ane Fonda in Rollover (81, Alan J. Pakula); Flashpoint (84, William Tannen); Songwriter (84, Alan Rudolph); Trouble in Mind (85, Rudolph); Big Top Pee-Wee (88, Randal Kleiser); Millennium (89, Michael Anderson); back from Cambodia in Welcome Home (89, Franklin J. Schaffner); Night of the Cyclone (90, David Irving); Cheatin' Hearts (93, Rod McCall); seeming older and impressive in Lone Star (96, John Sayles); Fire Down Below (97, Félix Enriquez Alcalá); very good as a James Jones figure in A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries (98, James Ivon); Limbo (99, Sayles); The Joyriders (00, Bradley Battersbv); Planet of the Apes (01, Tim Burton); Woolly Boys (01, Leszek Burzynski); D-Tox (01, Jim Gillespie).
Kristofferson shouldn't be regarded too solemnly as an actor, because one can hear his good-natured growl that he was always about so many other things—singing and writing songs, having every good time he could find, and just growing older gracefully, or whatever. At the same time, he has at least one great film (Pal Garrett), several fascinating curiosities, and a few genuine monstrosities to his credit. Plus there is the fact that his outer shell seems so thoroughly lived in that he may be at his best now, in his sixties.
Married Fran Beir, 1960 (divorced 1969), children: Tracy, Kris. Married Rita Coolidge, August 19, 1973 (divorced 1980), 1 child, Casey. Married Lisa Meyers, February 19, since 1983, five children.