Florida man did not know Kris Kristofferson was such a mensch.
Many of you probably do but I’m not the most versed person on movie stars after the mid-50s or singers of any genre so I’m not surprised, though I am chagrined, that I didn’t know anything about the man until now.
In case you missed it, he died on Saturday at 88.
But talk about a Renaissance guy. Country singer and song writer, actor and activist.
Since I know nothin’ bout him or country music I’m depending on some obits I’ve found online. I learn a lot from obits and maybe you will, too.
Kristofferson started his acting career in 1971 with the totally forgettable title, “The Last Movie.” It wasn’t, of course, there were 40 or 50 more, I lost count. In 1982, he did another last movie, “The Last Horror Show.” It still wasn’t the last, that was “Blaze” in 2018.
I looked at all the titles but didn’t recognize a single one. So his film career was lost on me, as so much else about everything has been.
Unfortunately, much of his music also slid by me without stopping despite the fact that he wrote songs recorded by Johnny Cash, Gladys Knight and the Grateful Dead. I’ve heard of all of them.
He was on TV a lot, too, from Saturday Night Live to The Muppets. To me his most intriguing TV title was “Sodbusters.” Don’t ask me why.
A song I do remember is “Me and Bobby McGee.” The lyrics, “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose/Nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’ but it’s free,” have stuck with me.
He earned a degree in literature, was good athlete and a promising boxer and a helicopter pilot in the Army. They wanted him to teach literature at West Point, but he said no.
In the ’80’s and ’90s he became an activist and wrote lyrics about social justice and human rights.
In 1992, after singer Sinead O’Connor tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II on SNL to protest sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, he came to her defense saying, “Maybe she’s crazy, maybe she ain’t, but so was Picasso, and so were the saints.”
Here’s a pretentious description from an obit I would never write: “Steeped in a neo-Romantic sensibility that owed as much to John Keats as to the Beat Generation and Bob Dylan, Mr. Kristofferson’s work explored themes of freedom and commitment, alienation and desire, darkness and light.”
Maybe that’s true whatever it means, but here’s his own description and I love it. “I wouldn’t be doing any of it if it weren’t for writing,” he said. “I never would have gotten to make records if I didn’t write. I wouldn’t have gotten to tour without it. And I never would’ve been asked to act in a movie if I hadn’t been known as a writer.”
The occupation listed on his passport was “Writer.”
What a career. I wish I had know about him before. I’ve got a lot of catching up do.
